Worse For Business
by RumbleintheDumbles
Summary: Pyromaniac masterminds, meddling headmasters, a trigger-happy military and a group of teens who can't stop sticking their nose in things they shouldn't - really, how's a guy supposed to make a dishonest buck around here? AU, Sequel to Bad For Business.
1. Business Resumed

**A/N: Well, I finally got around to starting this! For anyone who has questions about the Domino Effect, rest assured that it's not dead - but updates are going to be sporadic. My focus, all of it, is going on this. Well then, onto the show, I think!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY. It, in its entirety, belongs to Rooster Teeth, and I'm just playing in the sandbox they generously provided.**

* * *

Rowleys was one of the seedier bars in town. Walking in, the first thought that struck many was that the only thing that consistently looked more worn-down than the furniture was the clientèle. Thieves, thugs, bottom-feeders and those who were simply dealt a bad lot in life lurked around, drinking their woes away with kindred spirits.

Most would think that any well-dressed person who walked into this bar was begging to be mugged.

Most would be surprised. The regulars at Rowleys understood that a rich-looking person walking into the bar likely meant one of two things: they were a badass looking to pick a fight, or they were a business opportunity.

Those who recognised the red-haired, white-coated man walking through the front door, which accounted for most of the denizens still relatively sober, instantly pegged him firmly under the 'both' category.

A dozen eyes discreetly followed Roman Torchwick as he made his way to the bar. He leaned on the counter and glanced at the bartender. "Whisky, on the rocks."

The burly man nodded and began fixing up the drink. Roman, on the other hand, glanced toward a rather large and round individual who was in the process of telling a loud, boastful story to several much smaller men at the other side of the room. "Who's the entertainment?"

The bartender followed his gaze and grimaced. "That'll be Jim Brown, or 'Slim Jim' as he tends to get called."

"I can see why," Roman mused, eyeing the man who could only seriously be described as 'slim' if compared to an oversized whale.

"He's an idiot with a temper," the bartender said bluntly, "He's told this story three times already tonight, about him and his little gang jumping some guy and beating him half to death. Here's your drink."

"Keep the change," Roman dropped a few notes on the table, "I'd quite like to listen a bit more closely."

Ignoring the barman's curious gaze, he took his drink and walked calmly over to the table, where he caught the man finishing his story.

"-So then, he looks up at me, and he says, 'You don't know who you're fucking with'," Slim Jim somehow managed to puff himself up even further, "So I said back, 'Yeah I do'," he paused, "I'm fucking with a little bitch!"

The men around him burst out laughing.

"Then I took the crowbar and smashed his head off the ground," Jim said proudly, "That bastard won't fuck with me again."

"No, I suppose he won't," Roman interjected, "A fascinating story, Jim. Can I call you Jim?"

The thug glanced at him, warily, taking in his attire. "I dunno. Who're you?"

"My name is Roman Torchwick," at this, several backs straightened up, including that of Slim Jim, difficult though it had to be, "I just caught the end of your little story and I had to wonder what started the whole thing."

"Uh, yeah," the man's shock at being addressed by such an important person quickly gave way to eagerness to impress said person, "See, we were drinking at the Tap, and me and my boys, we've got our own seats, yeah? Our space, our territory. I'm sure someone like you knows all about protecting what's yours, right?"

"Right," Roman nodded patronisingly, "I can certainly relate. Running a large and varied enterprise is exactly like having a seat at the bar."

"Uh-huh," the tone apparently flew completely over the obese man's head, "So when I walk in, I see this guy sitting in our seat, right? So I go over and I tell him, 'Get the fuck out of my seat'. So what does he do? He looks at me, and he says, 'Should I move out of this one or do you need the whole booth?'"

Roman did not let any of his amusement at the quip show. "How dare he."

"Yeah," the man nodded sagely, "So then people are laughing at me. I don't like it when people laugh at me. But I'm a patient man. So I wait until he goes outside, and then, me and my boys?" he indicated around him, "We showed him what was what. Put that fuck in the hospital. I mean, I didn't hate the guy," he shook his head, "But it's not about whether you like him or hate him, it's about _disrespect_. He disrespected me, I had to respond, right?"

"Oh, I couldn't agree more," the crime boss nodded.

"So, why'd you want to know? Big shot like you, gotta have better things to do than drinking in Rowleys," Jim asked.

"Well, you see, Jim," Roman began, "As you may be aware, I'm a man with fingers in many different pies. I'm sure you're in a similar situation, literally rather than metaphorically, but I digress," he paused, "I run a number of… enterprises, in this city. To keep those enterprises running, I need good staff," the thug perked up, "Competent men and women, who are able to do what needs to be done to make money. A _lot_ of money."

"Yeah…?" Jim urged him to continue.

"And it just so happens," the crime boss continued, "That I recently found myself with an opening for someone with a… particular skill set."

Jim found himself leaning forward.

"Unfortunately," Roman's voice went cold, "Shortly after I found a man who would be perfect for the job, some two-bit thug and his little band of nothings jumped him and put him in the hospital."

Slim Jim blinked, then paled as realisation set in.

"You see," the infamous thief and information broker carried on evenly, "The man you and your little society of intellectuals here almost killed wasn't just some jumped-up, dime-a-dozen leg breaker. Anyone can pick up a blunt instrument and cause some violence. No, that man is a _listener._ Someone who can walk into a crowd and walk out with a mind full of valuable details, details that keep people in my profession, and by that I mean me, in the loop. That meant he was worth quite a lot to me."

"L-look," Jim stood up, sweating, "I didn't know he worked for you, I swear -"

"Now," Roman cut him off, "It's not that I particularly _like_ the man, but, what was it you said?"

He stood up, hand wrapping around Jim's throat as he lifted the now-choking man clean off the ground. He saw the man's eyes shoot to his thugs for help. He tapped the ground with his cane.

Roman then saw the first of Jim's followers hit the ground as his partner in crime made herself known. Standing at a solid four feet and nine inches with heels, the diminutive Neopolitan was possibly the least-threatening looking person on the planet. Anyone stupid enough to actually point this out about the white, brown and pink-clad girl, on the other hand, was quick to learn that judging a book by its cover could indeed become a fatal condition.

He looked back at the man who seemed to be losing more pounds in sweat than Roman actually weighed full-stop. "Ah, yes, I recall now," he tightened his grip around the struggling man's windpipe.

"It's about _disrespect_."

* * *

"Being a crime boss is so much work," Roman complained as he and Neo left their car, parked outside of their slowly-building base of operations in the warehouse district. "Meeting people, breaking things, meeting things, breaking people. Don't I have lackeys to do this for me?"

"..." Neo smirked.

"Yeah, I know," Roman grumbled, "Dealing with things in person helps to make a statement, builds reputation, etcetera. Doesn't mean I have to like it," he scowled, "The sacrifices I make for other people's money."

Neo raised an eyebrow as one of their doormen ran toward them from the entrance to the warehouse.

"Boss!"

Roman blinked as the man addressed him. "What?"

"There's a guy inside at the bar, asking for you by name," the man gasped, trying to catch his breath.

"And you just... let him in?" Roman asked incredulously.

"He has a giant sword, Boss. We figured that probably meant we couldn't stop him even if we tried," the underling said reasonably.

Roman opened his mouth to berate the man,"That," he paused, thinking about it, "...is actually a fair point," he admitted, "But what about the twins? I mean, I actually pay them for this sort of thing, don't I?"

"They did try, Boss," the underling agreed, "In fact, I think they might be still trying right now. But so far, he's finished three drinks and they still haven't managed to get him off his stool, so we figured it was probably a good idea to ask him what he was here for when he ordered his fourth. He said something about wanting to talk to you, he said it was about some chat you had with someone a few weeks ago."

Roman and Neo shared an uneasy look, before he sighed, gripping Melodic Cudgel tightly. "I guess we'd better find out what he wants, then. Lead the way."

* * *

The sound of an enormous binder, slamming down upon the dining table echoed around the cafeteria as the various students of Beacon and abroad had their breakfast. A few heads turned – when they saw who was involved, they promptly shrugged and turned back around.

Ruby Rose, the fifteen-year-old Huntress prodigy was, after all, part of team RWBY, steadily becoming more and more famous, or infamous depending on who you asked, both for the relative fame of two of their members and for their involvement in unusually dangerous and/or interesting activities.

"Ahem," Ruby cleared her throat and prepared to launch into a speech, "Siste-" she paused, seeing an empty spot in their usual place at the dining table, "Wait, where's Blake?"

Ruby's older sister, Yang Xiao Long, looked up from her breakfast. "Oh, hey Ruby. Blake was up early and went out with Ren and Velvet to that book store she's been going to."

Ruby looked crestfallen. "But… I had a speech! I planned out our entire day! It was going to be the best day ever! See, I even wrote it on the binder with all the activities in!"

She pointed to the cover of the thick, white binder, which, appropriately, read 'Best Day Ever Activities'.

The third member of their team, the famous Heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, Weiss Schnee gave the binder a suspicious look. "Is that my binder? I was looking for it yesterday and couldn't find it anywhere."

"N-no! It's mine!" Ruby answered with a nervous grin.

" _You_ own a plain, white binder which _isn't_ decorated by images of guns and other assorted weaponry?" Weiss asked pointedly.

"It was for a good cause," Ruby broke, "Honest."

Weiss shook her head in annoyance. "Whatever. What is this about?"

"Well," Ruby said, glad to be changing topic, "I really wanted us to have a great day together as a team to start the Semester before classes start up again tomorrow. So I planned out a series of things for us to do."

"Aww," Yang grinned, "And to think Weiss said you weren't capable of planning your next meal."

"I'll point out that we're yet to see what any of these activities entail or how feasible they actually are."

"See?" Yang continued, grin getting even wider, "She's got no faith in you at all. I, on the other hand, always knew you had it in you if the need a- _rose."_

Weiss and Ruby both groaned.

"Ha! Guys? Get it? Rose!"

"Boooooo!" Someone jeered from one of the other tables.

"Don't like, don't listen!" Yang called back.

"Get off the stage! I didn't spend my hard-earned wages on this ticket only to be subjected to such low-grade comedy!" A more familiar voice shouted, followed by a tomato flying towards their table – and colliding directly with Yang's face, splattering across it and covering her with tomato juice.

Ruby and Weiss stared.

"Nora..." the blonde-haired boy sitting next to the thrower sighed.

"Eheh," the orange-haired girl in question, Nora Valkyrie, arm still outstretched in the throwing position, chuckled nervously, "Did I take it too far again, Jaune?"

"Yes, Nora," Jaune Arc, the leader of Team JNPR, said flatly, "Yes you did."

"Oh, dear." Their third team-mate present, the red-haired, famous tournament champion Pyrrha Nikos, sighed, "This is going to turn into a mess again, isn't it?"

As if in response to her statement, Yang jumped up and flipped her table over, reaching for the nearest food item to retaliate with.

* * *

"So… this sort of thing has become increasingly common since those two teams started attending," A red-haired, dark-skinned, heavily-scarred young man noted from one of the other tables, "Should we not be, I don't know, stepping in and stopping it? I feel like we're failing in our duties as seniors, somehow."

"I don't believe that is necessarily a bad thing, Fox," his team-mate, the extraordinarily large and strong Yatsuhashi Daichi, commented, "They tend to leave us out of it, and they often provide some rather amusing entertainment while we enjoy our meals. Dinner and a show, as they say."

"Yeah, Fox," their team leader, Coco Adel, notably wearing her trademark sunglasses and beret even with her school uniform, shrugged, "Kids will be kids. There's no harm in letting 'em play around before they're sent out on the big-girl missions. Besides, Velvet likes them, so we like them by extension."

"They've left us out of it _so far_ ," Fox stressed, listening with detached, academical interest as the small, orange-haired girl picked up her screaming team leader bodily by the feet and started using him as a bat to fend off a series of flying watermelons sent at her by a vengeful Yang Xiao Long and a gleeful Ruby Rose, "But it's only a matter of time before one of them does something..." he trailed off as Nora accidentally let go of Jaune, sending him flying towards team CFVY's table.

He hurtled through the air, screaming, before landing with a thud and skidding right across the top of the table, knocking off the majority of the food on it.

As well as a cup, containing Coco's morning portion of steaming, hot coffee.

"Like... that," he finished slowly.

Coco stared at the shattered, dripping pieces of ceramic that formerly housed her favourite beverage.

Yatsuhashi stared at Coco.

Fox gulped.

There was a moment of silence as she stood up.

"The loud one." Coco stated calmly.

"The loud one?" Yatsuhashi repeated uncertainly.

"The loud one is the one I break first."

Fox turned his head toward the now-escalating food fight. Nora Valkyrie was cackling madly as she used a hammer made of a metal pole and a watermelon to fend off the roaring Yang Xiao Long, who had equipped a pair of turkeys as gauntlets. Meanwhile, Ruby Rose had formed an impromptu scythe by sticking a swordfish to the end of a table leg and was charging in, shouting a battle-cry, as masses of other students fled the dining hall in panic. "So… I've got to ask, _which_ one is the loud one?"

Coco looked at him, face as blank as her notebook for Professor Port's lessons. "Yes."

"Ah," he said weakly, "All right, then."

* * *

While their team-mates were currently getting involved in a furious food fight, the team-members not present were currently enjoying a leisurely stroll down one of Vale's city streets. As it was the last day off before the semester began, Blake Belladonna of team RWBY, Velvet Scarletina of Team CFVY and Lie Ren of Team JNPR were all heading to a book shop that Blake had begun to frequent recently to stock up on reading material for the coming few weeks.

It began when Blake received a thank-you message from a former White Fang member, Tukson. While not somebody she really knew well from her time in the White Fang, he had, at least, been an acquaintance who didn't seem as rabid as some of the other members… such as the Lieutenant, or, toward the end of her time there, Adam. His message said in no simple terms that her little moment in the spotlight had inspired him to turn himself into the authorities rather than simply go on the run as he had been previously planning to do.

Blake knew what usually happened to people who ran, and Tukson, as it turned out, had been responsible for one of the White Fang's front businesses that they used to move money around, so the White Fang would have been even less keen for him to leave.

However, after turning himself in, he was allowed to keep his book-store in exchange for useful information about a different sort of book-keeping – that being the financial book-keeping of the White Fang. His tip-offs allowed the police, huntsmen and Atlesian military to hit several shops in all four kingdoms that fulfilled a similar purpose to Tukson's shop. Tukson was also given 24-hour protection against any kind of reprisals. This, it seemed, was far better than anything he possibly could have imagined getting, and in thanks, he offered her and any friends she brought a discount on any books in his shop.

As an avid reader, this appealed to her greatly, so she decided to go and check out 'Tukson's Book Trade' – and found herself pleasantly surprised at the selection on offer. While Tukson didn't quite have 'every book under the sun', he had enough of them that Blake wasn't likely to run out of options any time soon. Given that he had extended the offer to her friends, and she knew Velvet was a book fan, she extended the offer to bring her along – and when a passing Ren expressed interest, she also invited him to take a look.

"I'm telling you, you're worrying too much," Velvet said with an exasperated smile, "We're only going to be gone for the morning. How much trouble can they possibly get into?"

"You don't understand," Ren was beginning to have second thoughts about the trip, for reasons that Blake actually found quite sensible, "The last time I left Nora on her own for an entire morning she nearly caused an international incident."

Velvet stared at him. "She… what?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Ren sighed despondently, "Suffice to say it involved a diplomat, an electrified fence and a car moving in a direction it really shouldn't have been."

Blake felt her treacherous curiosity get the better of her. "And what direction is that?"

" _Up."_ Ren replied hollowly.

The cat faunus decided to firmly put that on the 'things not to ask about Nora' pile.

"I'm sure the chances of something like that happening again are very unlikely, though," Velvet tried to reassure him, "I mean, yes, there are all the… representatives… from… other..." she trailed off, then looked at Blake, "You said we were nearly there, didn't you?"

"Yes," Blake said in amusement, pointing ahead, "There it is." Just up ahead was the distinctive slogan of Tukson's shop. Blake's smile dropped as she saw someone on the opposite end of the street suddenly turn, looking at her and speaking to his friend, who also turned and began a hushed conversation. Blake suddenly felt self-conscious – the not-unfamiliar feeling of wanting to shrink into the ground, out of sight from all onlookers, made itself known again.

"Don't worry," Velvet noticed where she was looking, "They aren't saying anything bad."

"How can you tel – ah, never-mind," Blake said abashedly, "That's not really what I was bothered about, though."

"You're having trouble coping with the fame," Ren said astutely.

"Wouldn't you be?" Blake sighed, "I'm... not really good at dealing with attention."

"Having never been even temporarily famous, I wouldn't know how it felt," Ren said apologetically, "And having Nora around is usually an excellent way to take the attention from yourself. It may be worth speaking with Pyrrha about how she manages it. I can ask her to talk to you about it if you'd like."

"I'm not really used to fame either, unfortunately," Velvet frowned, "Coco has a fan club, though. Maybe she can help?"

"She has a fan club?" Blake asked, curiosity once again overcoming thoughts of her ongoing predicament.

"Oh yes," Velvet agreed, "They all wear sunglasses and berets like she does and beg her to sign their handbags, things like that. She tried to form them into her own personal private army once, but thankfully, Professor Goodwitch refused her application for the 'Mean Berets: Private Military Company' school club."

Blake opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, then closed it again. "…The stories you two tell me sometimes make my team sound _normal_."

"I've heard that before," Velvet admitted, "But I'm sure you'll get used to the attention eventually. For now, maybe it would be better to focus on the good that's come from doing what you did. Like this," she smiled as they entered the shop.

Blake glanced to the left at Bayard, one of Tukson's employees, who was sorting the shelves – identifiable as another White Fang escapee due to the tag around his ankle, he had formerly been a low-level grunt in the terrorist organisation before he turned himself in. Though he did not have any kind of useful information, he also had not been involved in anything other than manual labour around the bases and camps – so the authorities allowed him to take on a role as an assistant at Tukson's shop.

This was someone who had a chance at an actual life now, rather than being what effectively amounted to cannon fodder for the whims of a violent maniac. If this was the result of her actions? Well, a bit of discomfort at getting more attention than she was used to was nothing.

"You're right," she said after a moment, "That does make me feel a bit better. You always seem to know what to say, Velvet."

"Not always," Velvet corrected her with a sly smile, "...I will accept 'most of the time', though."

"Was that a boast? Who are you and what have you done with Velvet," Blake retorted.

"For the record, if she _is_ an infiltrator," a deep voice said from behind the counter, "I'm not giving her a discount."

Blake turned to see the owner of the shop, Tukson, notable for his rather distinctive sideburns, watching their byplay with amusement while leaning on the counter.

"You're getting sloppy," Blake pointed out, "You didn't say it."

He blinked. "So I didn't. Welcome to Tukson's Book Trade, home to every book under the Sun!"

"That seems like quite the ambitious slogan," Ren commented.

"I'm yet to come up with a book he doesn't have in stock," Blake admitted, "If you want it, he probably has it."

"I see," Ren mused, "What do you have by way of recipe books?"

"Over in the far left," Tukson waved his hand in that direction, "First and second shelves, we'll have more in the back if you have a specific title in mind."

"I'll take a look first, thank you," Ren nodded politely.

"Ooh!" Velvet squealed in delight, "I've never seen a copy of this anywhere!" she held up a large, A4-sized book, titled 'Lest We Forget: The Great War of Remnant, captured on Photograph'. "I've been looking for it for years, this is really rare! How much is it?"

"Price tags are on the books," Tukson replied, "Take whatever that says and take twenty-percent off for your Blake Discount."

"I'm still not sure how I feel about becoming a discount," Blake said to nobody in particular as she picked out a black-covered paperback novel titled 'Being Human' – a cult classic she had yet to read about a man who had to have most of his body replaced with cybernetics, and his struggle to fit in with the people around him.

"Well, I'm not budging on the name," Tukson grinned.

"I must admit, I'm impressed as well," Ren spoke up from the side of the room, "I haven't even heard of several of these titles before. I'll certainly be coming back."

"Glad to hear it," Tukson replied pleasantly, "I spent most of my youth and major parts of my adulthood building up this collection, I'm pretty damn proud of it, if you'll excuse the language. Of course, I like Lien more than I like pride, so buy away!"

The three continued to look through the shelves for a few more minutes. Their peaceful browsing, however, would not last.

Velvet walked to the counter, carefully placing her purchase down on the desk top, before glancing at the other huntress-in-training in the room. "Blake."

"Yes," Blake had gone still, "I know."

They were being watched.

She didn't know who by, but experience had long since taught her that eyes in the dark rarely had benign intent. Her hand slowly began to make its way up toward the hilt of Gambol Shroud.

Ren walked over as Tukson glanced between the two of them with concern. "Am I to assume," the huntsman-in-training said quietly, "That we are expecting trouble?"

And, just like that, the feeling was gone.

After a few moments, Blake felt herself relax, and saw Velvet do the same out of the corner of her eye.

"No," Blake shook her head, "Just an odd feeling. I think it's passed."

* * *

 _'Damn it,'_ a girl with green hair and dark skin cursed from a roof nearby, _'Why did those damn kids have to show up now? After all the trouble we went through to get a gap between them changing the guard shifts,'_ she pondered her options, _'They even noticed I was there, too! There's no way I could make it through three trainee hunters in time before the police guard gets back. We're going to have to write this one off as a bust.'_

Had it just been regular civilians, she could have pulled it off simply enough, but even trainee Huntsmen or Huntresses were a completely different story. Especially when she recognised one of them to be the faunus that had caused the White Fang so many problems recently – anyone who could put up even half a fight against Adam Taurus one-on-one was not to be taken lightly. Emerald grimaced as she began to leave, trying to figure out the most painless way to break the news to Cinder that the planned operation to make an example out of Tukson had been stopped by freak chance, of all things.

* * *

Their bit of excitement for the day over with, the three students made it back to the school grounds with heavier bags and lighter wallets. Ren was understandably anxious to get back and make sure Nora hadn't levelled the place.

What they found was not quite what any of them had been expecting.

Yang and Ruby were holding brooms, frantically mopping up what seemed to be the result of someone exploding a bomb full of food all over the cafeteria. Every so often, they would both send nervous glances over their shoulder, as though waiting for someone or something to get them.

Weiss was standing on a platform made of ice, scrubbing food off the walls with a sponge and a bucket of water, her task not helped by the fact that she was flinching at any sudden or relatively loud noises.

Nora was sitting on a chair in the corner with several metal poles wrapped around her torso, constantly rocking back and forth, repeatedly and quietly muttering something unintelligible for anyone but Velvet at this distance.

Meanwhile, Pyrrha and Jaune were currently waiting hand-on-foot for Velvet's team leader, who sat at her table sipping a cup of coffee, the very picture of tranquillity.

"...you know," Ren was the first to break the silence, "I've got to admit, out of all the strange things I've found Nora doing, this probably even makes the top ten."

Velvet sighed.

Blake, on the other hand, could only muse that the 'things not to ask about Nora' pile should probably be re-classified as a small hill at this point.

* * *

Roman eyed the man sitting on one of the bar-stools warily. Melanie and Miltia had apparently given up, the pair looking completely exhausted.

The man had dark hair, scruffy stubble around his chin, and wore a white shirt with black trousers, with by far the most conspicuous items on his person being the tattered red cape on his back and the large, complex-looking sword holstered at his lower back. He was taking a swig from a small metal flask, evidently his personal supply, and one that was well-used, given that Roman could smell the alcohol on him from several feet away.

Roman sighed internally. A huntsman old enough to have a mid-life crisis was someone he wanted absolutely nothing to do with. A quick glance at Neo confirmed his fears – this man was dangerous, dangerous on the level of that insane pyromaniac or maybe even the old professor, depending on how strong that terrifying meddler actually was. Which, of course, meant he was hilariously out of their league in a straight fight.

"Good, you're here," the man's slurring broke him out of his musings, "We've gotta talk."

"Do we?" Roman frowned. "Who even are you? Are you with the big cheese?"

Yes, it was petty, but Roman was a very petty man.

"You could say that," the huntsman agreed, "I guess most would call me his intel guy."

Slowly, he stood up to greet Roman properly. As he walked closer, the smell of alcohol became much more pronounced. "But I'd rather you called me Qrow."


	2. Meeting the Shareholders

**Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth. I own nothing but my imagination.**

* * *

"A liason," Roman said sceptically.

He had known, when he took Ozpin's deal, that it was part deal, and equal part leash. He had only taken it due to a distinct lack of other options at the time – he really didn't have the firepower to take on Cinder himself, at least not unless someone major dropped into his lap, and if he was to make his bid for control over Vale's underworld, he needed the assurance of a heavy hitter or three in case Cinder came for him again, which was a fairly sure bet at some point.

On top of that, he severely doubted that he could change his tune and join Cinder's cause at this point, even if he wanted to. His mother always told him, 'Never get involved with a woman as crazy as me', and the flame-flinging femme-fatale made old Mama Torchwick look comparatively _sane_. When he then considered that he had gone out of his way to piss her off, foil her plans and make her look foolish for several weeks... well, that wasn't the sort of thing she would be willing to let go. How did he know? Simply put, because it wasn't the sort of thing _he_ would be willing to let go.

But even then, why did the man holding said leash have to be this guy? The smell of alcohol was so thick around him that Roman didn't dare light up a cigar for fear of setting the air on fire.

"That's right," Qrow leaned back against the counter, "If you're going to be working with Ozpin on this whole 'saving the kingdoms' thing, you need a point of contact. And since old Ozzy isn't the type to get his hands dirty, and he's got no-one else on his side who's dealt with the shadier side of the world before," he paused, "Except for old Port. You wouldn't _believe_ some of the stories that man could tell you… but even then, he's too old to blend in with your type, so I'm the babysitter."

Roman raised an eyebrow. "That's pretty honest of you, there. Are you sure you can blend in around 'my sort?'"

Qrow chuckled. "As if you didn't already know. Pal, you have no idea what kind of fight you got yourself into when you started this thing. These people? The things they've done, the things they're after? There won't be any kingdoms left if they're allowed to win. Which means none of us can afford to screw this up, including you."

"Yes," Roman deadpanned, "I've really been screwing it up so far. Only two terrorist leaders locked up because of me, I really shouldn't have taken my foot off the gas like that or I might have had three."

"Considering the biggest thing you contributed to the first one was getting your ass kicked by your midget," Neo scowled at the man's off-hand remark, "And you only shot the second in the back after my niece had knocked him around the docks, yeah, I do think you can screw up. One wrong move, that's all it takes, and they've got you cornered, with nobody else to do your fighting for you. Remember that."

"I do – wait, niece?" Roman's retort was stopped cold at the thought of this man having family, "Which one are you related to? Crazy Cat Lady: The Prequel or the overly enthusiastic gardener? I'm going to assume it's not the other one, considering it's definitely not motor oil you're pouring down your throat every two minutes."

"The second one," Qrow said with nauseatingly obvious pride, "I taught her how to use that scythe, too. Taught her everything she knows about fighting, about a hundredth of what I know, and I'd say about three times what you know."

"A-ha," Roman nodded sensibly, filing away that little tidbit for later, "It makes sense now. Crazy little girl spins a scythe the size of me around like a skipping rope? _Of course_ her mentor was drunk."

"All the best things happen when you're drunk," Qrow shrugged, "That's why I stay drunk all the time. But enough bitching. It's time we put that little gossip machine of yours to use."

Roman sighed. "And now we come to the _real_ reason why you decided to visit. Okay then... which grand, unspeakable mysteries of the world would you like Roman Torchwick to enlighten you on today?"

* * *

Blake was once again reminded of the foolishness of reading while you walked through a busy corridor on the way to class when she found herself stumbling after a rushing girl she didn't recognise bumped into her.

Her face snapped up, ready to berate the moron who interrupted her adventure into the mind of a cybernetic man – but her tirade fell short before it even began when she saw the girl was crying.

"Sorry," what must have been one of the upper-years mumbled as she started running again.

Blake watched her head down the corridor with a frown, before turning to her team-mates. "Any idea what that was about?"

"Yeah, I think," Yang said seriously, "That was Sierra Vivet, one of the upper years. Apparently, her parents Disappeared."

Blake's teeth clenched in anger. Disappeared. You could almost _hear_ the capital 'D' when people said the word at this point.

It had started a couple of weeks after their fight at the docks – but nobody really noticed the problem until a bit later on. It started with a couple of random missing people, unfortunate but not unusual as people went missing all the time. Then, more vanished. People started to sit up and take notice. Then, even more people vanished. People would head out to the store to buy groceries and never come back, go out to walk their dogs only for the dog to be found later, alone and distressed. Young, old, male, female, human, faunus, it apparently didn't matter who you were, you could still vanish all the same. Now, people were warned not to go outside alone or at night, and to make sure they always locked their doors – and the most terrifying thing was, sometimes even _that_ wasn't enough.

While the students at Beacon were quite safe, it didn't mean they couldn't be affected. Many of the students with family in more mundane walks of life were beginning to live in fear of getting called up to Professor Ozpin's office, only to be advised that one of their loved ones or family members had vanished from the face of Remnant.

Her team was fairly safe from any issues – Ruby and Yang's only family members were fully-fledged huntsmen, Weiss' only family member that she professed to care about was a Specialist in the Atlas military, and Blake's familial situation spoke for itself.

 _Well,_ she amended internally after glancing at their team leader, face set in a hard glare that looked surprisingly menacing on the usually up-beat and cheerful girl, _We aren't completely unaffected_.

Ruby was the definitive hero by personality, always willing to risk her life to save the day and protect the defenceless. Hearing about people disappearing from the streets of Vale when she was stuck in Beacon and utterly unable to do anything about it was particularly grating for her, and the topic tended to put her in a rather foul mood.

"I hope the authorities have an idea about who or what could be doing this," Weiss frowned, eyeing Ruby worriedly, "Things can't continue like they are."

"But who could it even be?" Blake mused, not for the first time, "I mean, most people's first choice of suspects would be the White Fang for something like this, but… Faunus have been kidnapped as well, and that really doesn't fit their M.O."

"They could be trying to throw people off the trail," Yang offered.

"Maybe, but I don't think so," surprisingly, it was Weiss who answered, "Given the public relations hit they took not long ago, kidnapping Faunus would surely do them more harm than good."

"That depends on what they want the people for," Ruby said quietly.

That comment threw Blake and the others. Ruby was right – they had been so focused on speculating about who was doing it that they hadn't stopped to consider _why_ they were doing it. What need could an organisation possibly have for kidnapping a fairly large number of people?

If the people were even being kidnapped at all.

The rest of the walk to Sparring practice went by in silence.

* * *

"Of course. The 'Disappearances'," Roman sighed, "Should have known that would have the headmaster's glasses steamed up."

"Not just him," Qrow said gruffly, "Just about everyone wants to know what the hell is causing it. I'll put good money on it being our mutual little problem and her gang, but we can't be sure unless we can link them to it."

"All right," Roman leaned forward on the bar, "Believe it or not, these disappearances have been concerning me as well. Police on the streets, curfew, suspicious characters, in particular the suspicious characters I employ, getting stopped by the authorities for no reason then busted for what they were _actually_ doing… it's bad for the bottom line. So I've had people looking into it. Finding out whatever they could. Come with me," he said simply as he stood straight, then began walking into a back office, Qrow finishing his glass before standing to follow him.

They entered a small room, dominated by a large board showing a map of vale. Pins were dotted all over the map, showing small photographs of people with names and ages attached.

"This is every disappearance that I'm aware of at the moment," Roman began, "All the ones the authorities know about, and quite a few more after that. Homeless, criminals, beggars, the sort of people who don't show up on records. When you look at that board," he indicated to it, "What do you see?"

Qrow stared at it for a moment, trying to piece some kind of hidden pattern or secret together. After a couple of minutes, he apparently gave up, and turned to Roman. "All right. You've got me. I've got nothing."

"Exactly," Roman tapped the board, " _Nothing_. There's no link, no connection, no trend, no pattern, nothing they have in common."

The criminal began to pace. "There's a few reasons that someone might want to stage a kidnapping," he started to explain, "The most obvious one is to try and get a ransom for them. But there are quite a few people on this list with no rich family members, or even no family at all, so the chances of getting a ransom of any kind of substance for them is about as likely as me teaching at Beacon."

Qrow snorted, clearly having considered the prospect of Roman teaching children. "Right. What other reasons?"

"One that's been tried a couple of times down the years is breeding programs," Roman said dispassionately, "You'll know that there are, sometimes, hereditary semblances – there have been people in the past who tried to take anyone related to someone with a hereditary semblance and breed them to try and get control of a powerful or useful ability, or even taken someone related to a huntsman with a strong ability to try and _make_ it hereditary. Never got into that game myself, even I have standards... but again," he indicated the board, "Some of these people don't have a huntsman in their family tree for generations. It doesn't fit. And if you're going to do something like that, you want a certain split of male and female guests and all of them need to be fairly young," he shook his head, "Which they haven't done. Some of the victims are even older than your cape."

Qrow looked so disgusted that he seemed to have completely missed the jab at his rather tattered accessory. "People actually did that – no, not important now. What else?"

"Making demands," Roman shrugged, "Terrorists or armies will take hostages and threaten to execute them until they get what they want. Normally, this would have been my first pick, given that the White Fang, well, exists... except for the fact that Faunus are vanishing as well, and let me tell you, 'making Faunus disappear' is _definitely_ not on the White Fang manifesto. I should know, I actually read the damn thing. The ideas after that are each more far-fetched than the last."

"So we've got nothing," Qrow looked unimpressed.

"We've got nothing _yet_ ," Roman corrected, "I'm still looking into it. I've got a few ideas, plans I can set in motion to try and catch our shadowy cartel of kidnappers in the act, but it'll take time to pull them off."

"How much time?" Qrow demanded, "If you think we can just sit around and wait forever when people are disappearing from their beds, your head's about as hollow as half your furniture."

"As long as it takes," Roman said, carefully hiding his irritation that the huntsman had coined on to one of his traps so easily with exasperation about the question, "Rush the miracle worker, you get shoddy miracles. Look, at the moment, I'm the only one with anything resembling an idea of how to get on top of this. Not the huntsmen, not the police, and not even Ozpin. Unless you've got something up your sleeve that's likely to _change_ that particular statistic, I'd recommend you stand back and let me _do my thing_."

Qrow considered him for a moment. "Okay, hot-shot. Listen up," he took a step toward Roman. "I don't like you. I don't like what you do. I sure as _hell_ don't like the idea that you're getting away with doing whatever the hell you want." He took a deep breath. "But… I trust Ozpin. And for some reason? He seems to think you're worth keeping. So, for now, I'll give you your space, under one condition: You keep me in the loop. And if I catch even a hint that you're crossing a line, taking things too far... well, that leash? It's gonna get a lot tighter. Understood?"

Roman nodded. "Capiché."

"Good," Qrow said flatly, "Now get me a goddamn drink."

As the huntsman stormed out of the room to inhale yet another glass of whatever the bartender could put in front of him, Roman found himself actually feeling rather thankful for the almost blind obedience Ozpin seemed to command from his people.

It was definitely something he could be able to take advantage of in the future. He set that thought aside, in favour of dealing with his current problem.

Now... how was he going to engineer the perfect kidnapping victim?


	3. Aggressive Negotiating

**Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY, it belongs to Rooster Teeth.**

* * *

 **Chapter Three: Aggressive Negotiating**

"This is Watchdog to Snowbird. All clear on the ground approach to the pass."

" _Acknowledged, Watchdog,"_ the crisp, collected voice of his superior came over the radio communications suite, _"Stay vigilant."_

"As ever, Ma'am," Private Douglas turned off the communications and allowed himself to lean back into his chair, running a hand through his trimmed, black hair as he monitored the camera feeds covering practically every possible area of approach for the train. _Not a bad assignment_ , he thought to himself, _Considering our unit wasn't originally pegged for this_.

Unit Five were an expeditionary force – an armed force expected to be able to operate for extended periods away from the field. To this end, they utilised equipment not often found in other Atlesian units, simple and rugged short-wave radio communicators, portable power generation, maintenance and logistical tools, once they had even been dispatched with mining and refining equipment to attempt to obtain their own Dust from an abandoned mine near an objective.

"I still don't get it," he glanced to the side at his partner, Private Teal, as she voiced the question most of their unit had been wondering since their escort mission began, "Why do they need us to guard the tin-men? There's nothing that can survive near this stretch of rail but Grimm, and their interest in the finest Atlesian Military Tech tends to end once it stops shooting them in the face."

He shrugged. "Who knows? I've heard some pretty crazy stories about what's been going on in Vale these days. Gang wars at the Docks, White Fang everywhere, there was even this one crazy report about giant elemental spirits going at it near some old warehouses, but nobody seems to believe that one."

"Okay, but the last bit of bullshit aside, it still doesn't really justify why they'd call us in," Teal countered, "A regular guard detachment could have kept thieves and the White Fang away."

"Like I said," Douglas agreed, leaning his head back on his interlinked hands, "Who knows? I'm not going to complain though. This is an easy assignment."

Teal's face turned sour. "If you keep tempting fate like that, it won't stay easy for long."

"Not that superstition crap again," Douglas rolled his eyes, "How many times have I said something like that on a mission, only for absolutely nothing to go wrong? You think you'd learn by now."

" _Watchdog,"_ both Privates straightened up as the comms crackled into life again. _"We are entering the pass. No hostiles in the sky, is there any movement on the ground?"_

"Negative, Snowbird," Teal reported promptly, "We have no – wait," she blinked, "We have a sighting. An Ursa, at the treeline to our East. Looks to be a loner, probably just curious."

" _Acknowledged,"_ Snowbird responded, _"Keep an-"_

"Wait," Douglas leaned forward as he spotted movement on several other screens, "We've got more movement. Ursa again. And there's a Beowolf. What's going on?"

Snowbird was silent for a moment. _"Watchdog, we have contacts approaching by air. Larger contacts match the radar profile of Giant Nevermores, smaller contacts seem to be Griffins."_

"More Ursa and Beowolves showing up on the ground," Teal began looking concerned, "We've got an Alpha here as well – no, two."

" _It's an attack,"_ Snowbird barked over the comms, _"Sound the alert and activate the automated defences! Mechanised units are to funnel the enemy into kill zones for the turrets, infantry are to stay on the train and repel boarders! I will handle the enemy in the air and provide close-in air support where possible."_

Private Teal opened up comms for the entire convoy. "All forces, be aware, we are facing a significant and immediate Grimm attack. Orders are as follows..."

"Why here?" Private Douglas muttered, "This pass is the perfect ambush location, it offers significant cover from the tree lines and the cliffs hide incoming aerial units from fire until they are close enough to cause problems, it's why we were so alert," he frowned, observing on the cameras as men and women of Atlesian Army Unit Five dug in and readied themselves for a fight, "This was the area where any smart enemy would have hit us."

Teal muted the comms, orders passed along, and turned to him. "So what's your point?"

"Well," he clenched his fist, "Since when have the Grimm ever fought _smart?"_

She blinked, and her face went pale. "Oh. Sweet fucking Maiden of Summ-"

Her curse was cut off as the train jerked heavily, throwing them both out of their chairs and into their desks with a heavy crash.

Douglas stumbled to his feet first, glancing at the screens to see what had forced the train to slam the emergency brakes. All across the screens, he could see troopers similarly knocked down desperately trying to get back into position as the horde of Grimm began to approach from the treelines. In response, beams of light lanced out from the train's on-board turrets, lashing into the mob of Ursa, Creeps and Beowolves and carving through several at a time.

He glanced at the front-facing cameras, and felt his heart sink even more. An enormous, black, quadrupedal creature moved calmly up the track toward the train, briefly raising its head and massive trunk to let loose a sound that seemed to shake the air; the Trumpet from Hell, as it was nicknamed in the forces, though one trooper was infamously on record as calling it 'the wrong side of bed song', because hearing it was the precursor to a very, very bad day.

Teal slammed on the comms first. "Goliath to the front of the train, I repeat, Goliath to the front of the train!"

* * *

Inside her ship, the Special Operative attached to Unit Five stood up. "Take command of the Snowbird," she ordered the co-pilot, "Hover above the train, focus the cannons on the Goliath."

"What about you?"

Winter Schnee observed the quickly opening battlefield coolly. The Atlesian soldiers were back in defensive positions on the train, disciplined streams of fire lashing out of specifically designed firing windows into the oncoming horde of Grimm. The turrets were proving to be worth their weight in gold, succeeding in keeping the horde at bay, but were mounted on top of the train with little cover.

A roaring noise directed her attention to the rear of the train, where a squadron of light vehicles was rushing forward, swivel-mounted automatic turrets tearing into Grimm with lethal effect. The Grimm, of course, reacted, moving to follow the vehicles. It was a tactic used since before living memory, using mobile units to lure Grimm into the scopes of your most powerful guns.

"The turrets need to be protected," Winter declared, "If those flyers make it here, they'll tear them apart. I'll take care of that," she pressed a button on her scroll, and the side door to the Snowbird opened. Without a moment of hesitation, Winter leaped out into the world.

For a moment, she felt the pure exhilaration of freefall – the wind blowing through her hair as air resistance futilely tried to slow her descent, the ground looming larger and larger… still focused, a large glyph shone into life underneath her. From the glyph, a great shape began to bloom outward, borne from a blazing white light. Her feet landed on a heavily-feathered torso, as great wings formed out at either side. A large, feathered tail sprung into being behind her, while large claws hung underneath, and a sharp beaked, four-eyed head came into being at the front of the creature.

She raised a hand, and at the last moment, the white Giant Nevermore pulled out of the dive it had formed into, Winter crouching low to keep her balance as the massive bird pulled up into the air above the mass of enemies. Not missing a chance to get a shot in, with a flap of its huge wings, a barrage of sharp feathers rained down upon the Grimm like a hail of spears, skewering dozens of them.

She carefully hid a smirk as she heard the cheers of her soldiers, focusing on the flock of flying enemies looming ever closer as she gained altitude and velocity.

From this distance, she could see at least three Giant Nevermores and at least two dozen or so Griffins – a formidable threat to any Atlesian unit not equipped for anti-flyer work.

Fortunately, that was why she was here. She raised her hand.

Runes and symbols, older than civilisation, drew themselves into existence, forming a circular glyph that hovered in front of her outstretched palm. Hand wrapping around the hilt of her sword, she drew the blade, slicing through the Glyph in one, smooth motion.

The circular shape fractured into dozens of white, glowing shards, slowly floating away from one another – she clenched the fist of her free hand, and their separation stopped in its tracks.

Finally, she punched her arm out, opening her hand and directing her power.

The shards rocketed forward toward the flock of Grimm, a horizontal rain of white, blazing death. The barrage pelted their hides and slammed into their bodies. Several of the Griffins fell out of the sky, their disintegrating bodies hurtling toward the ground in free-fall, while she saw the Nevermore nearest the front falter and stumble in the air, costing it valuable moments in which to pull itself together.

Moments she would capitalise on. With a wave of her blade, her own avian summon put on a burst of speed, hurtling toward the scattered enemy formation. She braced herself as it bore down on the faltering enemy.

With a crunch, white giant slammed into black, and her Nevermore tore into its floundering prey with unbridled ferocity. The hapless creature was not used to defending itself from an enemy of similar size, and her own creation soon caught the advantage in the battle.

Winter did not waste time watching. She waved a hand, and suddenly, dozens of white glyphs appeared in the air around what was now an extraordinary, primal dogfight.

She leapt from the back of her own Nevermore, leaving it to finish off its counterpart, and felt her feet land on the nearest glyph. A quick slash to her left, and the Griffon attempting to blindside her found itself missing everything from the top jaw upward.

Not sparing the defeated enemy a glance, she shot off like a bullet toward the next glyph. Another Griffin had placed itself between Winter and her objective – the creature had no time to react as her sword carved it in half.

She sprang between one, two, three glyphs, appearing, upside down and foot raised above a third Griffin. With a shout of exertion, Winter slammed her foot down with a thundering kick, the blow impacting the back of the Grimm with the thunderous boom that always accompanied a blow breaking the sound barrier before it struck home. No set of wings on Remnant could have kept a creature the size and strength of the Griffin in the air after taking such a hit from above, and it hurtled down – directly into the Giant Nevermore passing underneath. Bird and Beast screeched and roared as they descended to the ground like a tumbling, feathered meteor, before they landed with a thunderous impact a moment later, killing them both.

Winter landed neatly on another Glyph platform – and instantly pushed off from it as a giant, black feather flew through the position she had formerly occupied. Several dozen of it's fellows followed it. The Special Operative was a silver-white blur as she darted from platform to platform, dodging the massive, sword-sharp projectiles that could slice a grown man in half and tear through vehicle-grade armour with ease.

She glanced at her attacker. The last of the three Giant Nevermores was pulling itself up to launch another feather barrage with a flap of its wings. This time, she saw it coming.

Forming another, large glyph, countless miniature, white birds began to circle her body. Pushing a hand out toward the Nevermore, her birds spread out and flew at the creature, forming a wall of white, flapping wings.

The volley of black feathers met her birds head-on, slicing through the first resistance they met with ease, the fallen birds popping in a cloud of white vapour. But the flock was too thick – the feathers losing momentum as they went through more and more of her creations. Soon enough, a new cloud formed in the sky as white vapour covered the hundred-meter space between Human and Grimm.

The Nevermore was not fast enough to catch Winter as she flew out of the smoke and slammed into its neck. In an instant, her blade stabbed upward, piercing through its throat, up into its head, killing it instantly.

She spared her own creation another glance, only to see another feather barrage, this one bright white instead of pitch black, tearing into the remaining Griffins and slicing them into figurative ribbons, her Nevermore's counterpart already disintegrating as it fell from the sky.

Using the rapidly-disappearing body of her most recent kill as a platform, she jumped through the air, landing neatly on the back of her flyer. She channelled her power into the bird even as she directed it back toward the battle on the ground, the gouges and cuts it had suffered in the short brawl mending themselves as it dove toward the train with an ear-splitting screech.

She focused her attention on the most problematic target: the Goliath. The enormous Grimm was being hammered by the Snowbird – but while her ship had powerful armaments for its size, it wasn't enough to stop it entirely, and the beast was slowly ploughing through the beams toward the train.

With a gesture, her Nevermore dropped into a dive, moving toward the Goliath to pepper it from the air.

At least, that had been the plan.

Her eyes widened as she saw the great beast raise it's head toward her, the trunk unfurling, before it let loose with a devastating, roaring trumpet that eclipsed the first in volume. A literal wave of pure sound rushed toward her creation as Winter practically threw herself from the bird – which did not last a second as the sonic attack crashed into it, falling apart into a cloud of fine, white mist.

Forming more glyph platforms down toward the ground, Winter landed neatly on the first, before she jumped from glyph to glyph to land safely on the field, focused on the gigantic Grimm.

The distinctive sound of dropships in flight distracted her slightly. Had there been reinforcements in the area? She hadn't remembered any forces operating near the rail line when she read the mission briefs. She glanced back toward the train.

And blinked, in surprise.

She idly considered the multitude of questions she now had. The Goliath stomped toward her.

 _'How on Remnant did the White Fang manage to point a large force of Grimm at the train with such effective timing?'_ Luring the Grimm into a force of your enemies had been tried many times in war, but the creatures were utterly unreliable and were just as likely to attack your forces than the opponents, and yet a terrorist group had seemingly succeeded where every military in Remnant's history had failed.

She leaped into the air to avoid the sweeping trunk of the monster.

 _'How did they know the timetable for the train? And why were the White Fang trying to hijack it? Were they aware of the prototypes?'_

Landing on her feet, she scowled as she considered the possibility of the Atlesian military having leaks. There was, however, an efficient way to find out, and hopefully start plugging those leaks.

"This is Special Operative Schnee to Snowbird," she communicated, "Get a wide-range transmission to all Atlesian forces in the field: take prisoners, wherever possible!"

She eyed the situation on the train – Atlas troops were successfully holding the Grimm at bay for now, but she needed to handle the Goliath right now unless she wanted that to change. Turning back to the Grimm, she waved a hand, and dozens of glyph platforms surrounded the monster.

She then made another gesture, and a large, golden glyph, not unlike a ticking clock, formed underneath her feet, encompassing her with a subtle, golden glow.

Time dilation was one of the most powerful parts of the Schnee semblance, and Haste was one of the most common uses. Under the effects of Haste, a fighter who was merely quick could seem like a blur, even to opponents with hunter training or higher-level Grimm.

Someone on Winter's level, however, who was that quick _anyway_ – well, suffice to say, the effect became even more pronounced.

The world slowed down, the formerly frantic sounds of battle becoming a dull and plodding backdrop. She took a step forward, then another. The Goliath was focused on her. She saw it raising it's trunk to attack again, all too slow.

She flashed forward, attacking at full speed, her blade carving a gouge out of the Goliath's side as she jumped to her first glyph. Her second attack sliced the back of the left rear leg at the tendons, her third the right rear leg. Her third and fourth attacks carved through the front legs. She saw the Goliath's body begin to slowly crumple as damaged limbs were rendered unable to carry weight. Her fifth attack sliced neatly through the trunk at the base, severing it from the monster's face.

Ten seconds. Less than a second of real-time.

It wasn't done yet. She observed it desperately trying to let loose with the sonic attack it had initially been targeting her with, in an attempt to damage something, _anything_ , before it fell. She formed a platform beneath its head, leaping over toward it.

Landing on the glyph, she crouched low, before launching herself up with a savagely powerful upwards kick that slammed into the Goliath's lower jaw, snapping the beast's mouth shut just as the shockwave was about to leave it.

Winter gritted her teeth as she felt the pressure trying to force the jaw open, but she held firm, and the Goliath's body experienced the unfortunate sensation of an expanding shockwave powerful enough to level trains being trapped inside of it with the only exit point being an open wound at the front of the face. The creature's head practically exploded outward, the sonic shockwave blasting off harmlessly into the sky as the Special Operative was blasted down into the ground.

Winter saw and heard the effect of Haste finish before she felt it. The world sped back up, and the sounds of gunfire, shouting and explosions came rushing back as the body of the now-dead Goliath, head utterly ruined and already beginning to vanish, fell with a thud audible even over all the other noises assaulting her ears once more.

She got to her feet, taking a moment to catch her breath, before she turned back to the train. The smaller Grimm seemed to have stalled in their assault – the Alphas and Majors remaining were backing away, starting to retreat toward the trees. She knew they were more intelligent than most Grimm – perhaps they felt that without the Goliath, odds were no longer in their favour. The less intelligent Grimm remained, however, throwing themselves at the Atlesian guns with suicidal fervour.

White Fang troops, however, were now engaged in a furious, close-range firefight with Atlesian Soldiers – and they were losing. While the force attacking the train would have been more than enough to overwhelm any surviving troops or automatons from a regular guard detail after a serious Grimm attack such as the one they had faced today the superior equipment, discipline and training of the Atlesian Expeditionary Troopers was showing through today. Which lead Winter to one conclusion.

"They didn't expect us to be here," she murmured to herself.

She began running toward the stalled vehicle, cutting down several smaller Grimm who attempted to get in her way. With a single leap, she bounded up, landing on the roof of the second carriage.

And found herself face-to-face with four dumbfounded White Fang troops. One of them had seen her coming, and was already levelling his pistol at her.

Winter was conscientious of the fact that she needed prisoners. With that in mind, she decided she would put on a show of force. Time began to slow once more as a glyph formed under her feet.

She saw the bullet leave the pistol chamber, and begin flying in her direction. Impressively, the round was on target to hit her centre-mass, which said something for the reaction time and on-the-spot accuracy of the shooter.

As the bullet got closer, she brought her free hand up, catching it in the palm of her hand, and yanking down to cut out its momentum. She held the bullet up between two fingers as time began to speed back up again.

The four terrorists stared at her in shock. She wasn't surprised. Anyone with a bit of huntsman training could block or dodge bullets, but to see someone actually catch one in their hand must have been an unfortunately novel experience.

"Cute," she said calmly, "But I don't need a gun to do that."

Placing the bullet on her thumb, she flicked it with her index finger. The round blasted into the shooter's pistol with more force than the gun itself was capable of producing, knocking it out of the man's hand. The unfortunate grunt yelped in pain, cradling his hand as the others backed away warily.

"Have you ever heard the saying, 'Manners maketh the man'?" Winter asked them coldly, "Because what your friend there just did was rather rude."

She took a step forward. They took a step back. The sounds of the battle were quickly fading away – the remaining Grimm were being mopped up by the mobile units, while the White Fang's dropships were lifting off and leaving as quickly as they could.

"Then again, it should not surprise me," she continued, "For a group so determined to be treated like Humans, you members of the White Fang always seem strangely willing to ignore the prerequisite attributes implied."

She saw fists clench, but nobody moved. Good. If they weren't attacking after an insult like that, they knew they were beaten.

"Now, lay down your weapons and surrender," she ordered, "You're going to tell me everything you know."

One by one, they did so. Then, the one who had shot at her started chuckling.

"Oh?" Winter tilted her head, "Was something I said amusing?"

The man snorted. "Yeah, actually. The fact that you think we could even tell you a damn thing."

Her eyes narrowed. "Explain."

The terrorist did so, gleefully. "We aren't told anything. We don't even have contact with other groups any more. All we knew today was to attack the train when we saw a signal! I bet you could make us talk," he grinned, "But we can't tell you what we don't know."

She frowned, putting the pieces together. "Cells. You've started operating in cells."

At that point, one of her troops made it up onto the roof. "Ma'am, all Grimm have either retreated or have been eliminated, and all terrorist attackers have either retreated or have been incapacitated."

"Casualties?" Winter asked.

"Ten, Ma'am," the trooper reported gravely, "Eight lost to the Grimm, while Troopers Douglas and Teal died denying the comms centre to enemy terrorists before additional troops could reinforce."

She clenched her fist in anger. Ten good men and women, dead, and if what the ingrate in front of her was implying was true, she might not even get anything to show for it.

"Take these four away to be held with the rest of the prisoners," she ordered, "And bring the logistical units up to fix that break in the rail line. I want this train moving within the hour."

The trooper saluted. "Yes, Ma'am!"

As the four terrorists were led away, Winter pulled out her scroll, and began considering her report to General Ironwood.

Ultimately, the prototypes were still secure. Given that they were the only possible motive for an attack, not losing any of them made today an objective success.

She only wished that it felt that way.

* * *

"Well," Glynda commented, "His penchant for bringing his work wherever he goes certainly hasn't changed."

Ozpin could only silently agree as he observed the enormous airships floating above his school. He certainly was not a fan of having such an overt display of military force in his city, but it was something he would have to bear for the sake of keeping one of his most important allies on his side, and frankly, given the current climate, they may even be a help.

"What the hell is he thinking?" snarled the other occupant of Ozpin's office. He and Glynda turned to Qrow in surprise. "He knows we're supposed to be discrete, right? What part of 'parking giant airships over vale' is goddamn discrete?"

"Discretion is not as much of an issue, now," Ozpin pointed out, "Our enemy has already made their opening moves. Given the current situation, I actually feel that having a strong presence on the streets may calm the people's fears," he sighed, "That does not mean I don't feel they are an eyesore, however."

Whatever Qrow was about to say next was cut off by the elevator door opening. A tall, well-built man, black-haired with a hint of grey and wearing a smart military uniform walked into the office with a smile on his face.

"Ozpin, Glynda," James Ironwood greeted them, "It's good to see you. I wasn't expecting so many," he eyed the third man, "Qrow."

"Jimmy," Qrow greeted with a challenging smirk, "I wasn't expecting to be here myself. Ozpin called me back when I sent my little message."

The two men stared each other down, tension palpable in the room.

"Yes," Ozpin replied, "In response to some discomforting developments in the city, that I'm sure you've heard about."

"Straight to business, then," Ironwood sighed, "Yes, I have. I have news of my own to share as well, but that can wait for a moment."

"Very well," Ozpin repressed a hint of curiosity, "As you are aware, we have recently been having trouble with a young woman with a penchant for fire. It began when Glynda intervened in a battle between one Ruby Rose," Ironwood stirred at the name while Qrow's lips twitched, "And a mysterious young woman who was overseeing the robbery of a dust shop in downtown vale, that the former interrupted."

"Rose," Ironwood questioned, "Any relation to -"

"Yeah," Qrow replied shortly, "Her kid."

"I see," Ironwood nodded, "Please, go on."

"After that, we got reports of several incidents in town, but nothing really noteworthy until I received a rather interesting email from an anonymous source."

"This would be the thief," Ironwood frowned.

"Indeed," Ozpin agreed, "Roman Torchwick. Formerly a local thief, exceedingly difficult to pin down due to a combination of his own wiles and his unusually competent partner, a young-looking girl called Neopolitan. It seemed that he had formed an alliance of sorts with Hei Xiong, a local information broker who also traded in hired criminals, and was taking action to try and remove our mutual problem from Vale."

"Why?" Ironwood questioned, "Did he give a motive?"

"Simple lifestyle preservation, we believe," Glynda replied, "The dust supply was being hit hard, and we as well as the police were cracking down on criminals across the city to try and find the source. Torchwick and his ilk had two choices: either lie low and hope it all blows over, or try to remove the problem at it's source. Torchwick chose the latter, we believe at least partially due to not understanding the scope of what he was pitting himself against."

"Torchwick's information actually almost lead us to capturing the culprit," Ozpin continued, "When one of our combat teams, led by Glynda, engaged a White Fang outpost while she was present. However, the culprit managed to get away."

"And I heard that attack caused quite a bit of collateral damage, too," Qrow snickered, "Did you really need to level half the warehouse district?"

"I do not believe you are in any position to chide anyone over collateral damage, Qrow," Glynda sniffed.

"You're arguing hypocrisy to the guy who acts like a role model to a bunch of kids and drinks more than all their parents put together," Qrow pointed out before, as though he had suddenly reminded himself about his need to do so, taking a swig from his flask,

"Anyway," Glynda returned to the topic. "The enemy we were hoping for unfortunately escaped, but we captured the rather infamous White Fang member known as the Lieutenant. I'm sure you're aware of his list of known and suspected crimes, James."

"I am," Ironwood said appreciatively, "Getting that lunatic off the streets was a major win. Some of the crime scenes he has left behind..."

"Indeed," Ozpin interrupted, "Which lead us to a few weeks of relative peace, until the incident at the docks, which I am sure you're well aware of," his tone then hardened, "And which we still need to have words about. How is that girl?"

"Penny," Ironwood resisted the urge to sigh, "I can explain, Ozpin. Suffice to say, she was lucky. If Taurus had sliced her a couple of inches higher, he would have gone straight through her power core and killed her."

"You can't kill robots, Jimmy," Qrow rolled his eyes.

"Penny is not a mere robot, Qrow," the General replied, eyes narrowing, "She is a synthetic human, with a fully sapient artificial intelligence. She is as alive as you or me."

"Nontheless," Ozpin cut in, "As I said, we can discuss the girl later. What was important was that, with Torchwick's intervention once more, we found ourselves with Adam Taurus in captivity."

"Has he said anything since our last communication?" Ironwood asked instantly.

"Nothing of use," Ozpin replied, "He has grown steadily more unstable during his time in captivity, and has reportedly developed a rather unhealthy fixation with one of my students," his tone hardened again, "As you can imagine, I am rather reluctant to see him back out on the streets."

"Ah, yes," Ironwood said carefully, "The White Fang defector."

"Her name is Blake Belladona," Glynda replied sharply.

"Taurus' protegé, before she left," Ironwood replied, just as sharply, "We have done some research on your little celebrity, Ozpin, and we've linked her either directly or indirectly to several crimes, even some deaths when a freight train was hijacked several months ago."

"Miss Belladona has shown an earnest desire to repent for her past misdeeds," Ozpin said firmly, "And I believe she can do more good by becoming a huntress than she can by serving time in prison."

Ironwood did not look impressed. "I'm sure you had your reasons, but seeing a criminal get away scot-free with their crimes will never stop being a problem for me, Ozpin."

"Heh, I bet you busted a few of those screws loose at the next part, then," Qrow snarked, arms folded as he sat on Ozpin's desk.

"Of course, we then had Miss Schnee's little public relations gambit," Ozpin chuckled at the man's surprise, "Oh, I had nothing to do with it other than giving the go-ahead. The idea and implementation was all Weiss Schnee."

Ironwood raised an eyebrow. "I see somebody isn't following the party line. As you can probably imagine, I've had quite the earful about the whole thing from her father," he shook his head in irritation, "While I appreciate the resources he provides, I hope I'm never that overbearing to any children I ever have."

"Yes, well," Ozpin sighed, "You made your deal with a rather milder devil than I did, I fear."

"Less of a devil and more like… the devil's annoying pet, really," Qrow offered, "I'm not sure I'd rank him that high."

"I believe you're referring to Torchwick again," Ironwood assumed, "And this agreement you have apparently made with him. I'm seeing an uncomfortable amount of villains getting out of jail for free in this scheme of yours so far, Ozpin."

"He has proven surprisingly successful in his endeavours so far," Ozpin defended his position calmly, "He is giving every impression that he is the sort of man who, if properly motivated, can succeed when he is far out of his proverbial weight class. Combined with his contacts in the criminal underworld, and the fact that, by keeping an eye on him, we have a reasonable ability to keep a solid hold on crime throughout the city, I thought it was best to make use of him. He has, after all, been involved in both successes to be had against this 'Cinder' so far."

"Yeah, about that," Qrow spoke up again, "I've talked to the guy. While he can't prove who's making people vanish right now, he's confident he's got a plan that will work, as long as we back off and don't try to push him on anything. I don't know anything about this 'plan'," he made quotation marks with his fingers, "But I'll keep an eye on him and will hopefully have more information soon. Honestly, compared to what you had me doing before, this is easy."

"Let's not speak too soon," Ozpin said firmly, "Now, James, seeing as we've wrapped things up neatly there, you said you had information from us?"

"Yes," Ironwood pulled out his scroll, "An armed transport train carrying prototype Atlesian military technology was attacked earlier today by the White Fang."

Glynda's brow furrowed. "While unusually overt for them, I'm not sure why this warrants the Brotherhood's attention."

"Because they used Grimm to do it," Ironwood said gravely, "A small army of Grimm attacked the train with perfect timing, followed shortly by an attack force from the White Fang, attempting to steal some prototype mechanised war machines. Now, as any general knows, a conventional force managing to use the Grimm to do their dirty work for them -"

"-Is close to impossible," Ozpin finished for him, "Unless they had some means of controlling the Grimm. Which has been repeatedly shown to be impossible, apart from the one thing that we, in this room, know about."

"Salem," Qrow unfolded his arms, "She's moving now? We're nowhere near ready. Hell, we're still down a Maiden."

"And the other trump card we may have up our sleeves is a good few years away from being able to make a difference, yet," Ozpin sighed, ignoring Qrow's scowl with long-practised ease.

"Fortunately, they were unable to get away with any of the equipment, mainly because I changed the troop rotation last-minute to have the train guarded by an experienced expeditionary force due to the recent troubles here and my best Special Operative was on hand as well," Ironwood continued, "But this speaks volumes. They knew when to hit the train. They presumably knew what was on it. This means I have leaks in my army," he clenched his prosthetic fist, "That is a situation that I can not allow to continue."

"Maybe some of those 'special operatives' decided they were a bit too special to take orders from you," Qrow snorted, "Might wanna start there, pal."

"Not now, Qrow," Glynda cut in before Ironwood could retort.

"Another problem to add to the list of many that we are forced to deal with," Ozpin nodded tiredly, "Our enemy appears to be a step ahead of us at every turn. This is why I have turned to an outside element," he turned to Qrow, "Somebody who can, for lack of a better term, shake things up, and put a proverbial spanner in the works. People who can make plans are easy to come by, but people with such a talent for breaking them? A considerably rarer commodity. Qrow, keep an eye on Torchwick, but do not interfere unless it becomes absolutely necessary. We will give Torchwick the space he requires for now. James, for now, I would like you to focus on plugging these leaks of yours. We will meet here in this capacity again in a week, and go over the situation again, then."

"Sure thing," Qrow gave a lazy salute.

"Very well," Glynda nodded.

"That is fine," Ironwood replied, before smiling, "Now, Ozpin, if we are done with the business of saving the world, I believe I need to discuss a few things with you about the even more dangerous business of running a school."

"I'll leave you to it," Qrow waved off, turning to leave, "I get enough of that crap at signal."

"Yes, I'll make my way as well. I have duties to attend to," Glynda went to follow him.

"The deadliest business there is," Ozpin agreed, "Lord only knows how many times Glynda has said it would be the death of her. Come then, have a seat, first of all, I should show you the dorms I have reserved for your students..."


	4. Board Strategy Meetings

"Hmm..."

Neo watched in amusement as Roman stroked his chin, looking up in the air, deep in thought as he considered something.

The something in question? The gigantic airship that had just flown over their heads.

Roman stared at it, looking for all intents and purposes like he was sizing it up. She saw his head tilt this way and that as his hand brushed over an imaginary beard.

"...Nah," Roman said finally, "Probably not."

Neo found herself agreeing.

Stealing the thing wouldn't be too hard. Keeping it, on the other hand, would be.

She followed Roman inside, walking past the twins, and the bar, to his back office, where the large board was set up.

Roman considered it for a moment, before turning to her. "So," he rubbed his hands together, "We've got to find out who, or what, is making people vanish into the night like my ex-wife with the house."

Neo nodded, waiting for him to go on.

Roman looked at her for a moment. "...so, I lied when I said I had a plan. Any ideas?"

She raised an eyebrow. "..."

"Of course I told the _huntsman_ I had things worked out," Roman rolled his eyes, "I needed him to back off and that was the best way to do it."

Neo looked unimpressed. "…?"

"Well, that's what we now need to figure out," Roman sighed, "How to turn that lie into something resembling a truth. Unusual for us, I know, but needs must."

Neo thought it over for a moment, before tapping her ear.

"Yeah, the 'plant a tracker and follow it' plan was the first thing I thought of, but there are problems," Roman mused, "For one, who can pretend to be a helpless potential kidnap victim? I know you can disguise yourself, but I need you in reserve in case any fighting is needed, and we don't have anyone else with your kind of skill. If who we're thinking is behind this, I don't think it'll be easy to fool them with the same trick again."

Neo stared at the board, mulling his objection over. After a moment, she looked back at him. "..."

"Don't pretend?" Roman raised an eyebrow, "How do you propose we do that?"

"…?" Neo raised a question at him.

"How do you catch fish? With bait and a hook," Roman looked confused at where the conversation was going, "And probably a load of other things that I don't know or care about because the only time I ever went fishing was as an excuse to dump a body."

Neo remembered that one. Good times. "…?" She asked again.

"The best kind of bait? Bait that looks realistic, I suppose," he leaned back against the wall, "Are you going somewhere with this, Neo, or are you just throwing unrelated metaphors around to try and sound more intelligent again? We already know that we need realistic bait."

Neo gave him a dirty look.

"Okay, okay," Roman raised his arms in surrender, "I get it, it was only once. Seriously, Neo, where are you going with this?"

Neo folded her arms. "..."

"Use _real_ bait?" Roman's eyes widened in comprehension, "Oh. _Oh,_ " he began considering the possibility, "Yeah, that could work. No need for acting, no need to worry if our double-agent is going to get found out again... but how would it work?"

"..."

"Yeah, planting trackers is obvious, but how, exactly, are we going to pick out potential kidnap victims? Our network is good, but even I don't know exactly who's going to be walking home alone on a given night."

Neo grinned. "..."

" _Make some?_ " Roman opened his mouth, then shut it again, "Ha… and here I thought working with the good guys was killing our edge," he shook his head in amusement, "Yeah, that should be easier. It'll still take time to pull it off without raising suspicion, but I think it's doable…" he opened his scroll, and began typing on it, "Okay, first of all, I'm going to need to make some orders and send some instructions out… good work, Neo. I should have known I could count on you."

Neo felt herself preen. Only slightly. She waved to leave.

"Sure, sure," Roman waved her out of the room, "Go do whatever, I've got some work to do."

She left, feeling satisfied at another job well done. She noticed the Twins at the bar, looking decidedly comfortable, and felt her curiosity crop up again. They were oddly fine with working for Roman, given the circumstances of their recruitment – they had never had any trouble with the pair, and they seemed to approach their work with the same level of professionalism and commitment they had back when they were Junior's people.

This was odd.

She made her way over to them.

Melanie noticed her approaching first. "Oh, hi, scary boss lady."

Neo felt amused. "…?"

Of course, normally someone could not convey what they wanted to effectively without speaking, or perhaps using sign language or the written word. Many who glanced at Neo and Roman's interactions assumed that Roman knew what she was trying to say because they were, figuratively, as thick as thieves, and that he was extremely good at reading body language.

That wasn't it. Granted, he was extremely good at reading body language, to the point where he could even do it in a fight and predict what his opponent was going to do next – but Neo, on the other hand, was _absurdly_ good at expressing herself through body language alone, to the point where she could effectively hold a conversation with anyone without actually opening her mouth.

Case in point, Melanie and Miltia.

"Well, like, is there a better description I can use for you?" Melanie shook her head, "You're the joint-boss, you're a lady, and you're scary as all hell."

Neo shrugged. It was a fair description, admittedly.

"So what do you need? Another job?" Miltia joined the conversation now.

Neo shook her head. "..."

"A question?" both of them blinked at the same time.

 _Creepy._

"What question?"

"…?"

"Why no hard feelings?" Miltia repeated, "What, you mean about working for you guys?"

Neo nodded.

The twins shared a look, then Melanie shrugged. "What hard feelings could there be? Junior paid us, so we worked for him. He double-crossed you, it didn't work."

"And now you guys pay us," Miltia continued, "So we work for you. It's just business. As long as we're making money, we're good, and despite being a total asshole, Roman _really_ knows how to make money."

Neo felt some bemusement. That was, frankly, one of the most mercenary things she had ever heard, and that was an impressive feat in and of itself given her life up to now. "…?" She tilted her head curiously.

"We double-crossed you before because you weren't paying us," Melanie said, as though it was the simplest thing in the world, and to them it probably was, "But now, you _are_ paying us, so we won't try anything."

"We know where our bread is buttered," Miltia agreed, "Doesn't matter who's holding the knife."

The implication, of course, was clear to see. As long as they were well-paid, Melanie and Miltia didn't really care. If they weren't well-paid, or someone else made them a better offer, however…

Still, that made them manageable. Easy to predict.

"Say," Miltia then spoke up again, "We've got a question for you, too."

Neo raised an eyebrow.

The twins shared a look. "...We know you can speak," Melanie began hesitantly, "So why don't you?"

Ah, this. The question anyone who heard her speak asked her. Well, anyone who heard her speak and actually survived.

These two might actually understand it, given their priorities and outlook on life. She considered what to tell them.

"Scarcity," she said quietly after a moment, "Breeds value."

She felt that the way the sisters perked up and eagerly leaned in the moment words came out of her mouth proved her point nicely.

When she had something to say, be it important or mundane, serious or mocking, long sentence or one-word statement, people _listened_.

Roman once told her that words were the most valuable currency on Remnant. If that was the case, she wasn't about to inflate her personal economy. She wasn't like Roman, who always seemed to have something interesting to say – so she would make _whatever_ she had to say interesting by virtue of the mere fact that she was saying it at all.

Melanie and Miltia looked thoughtful. "I don't get it," Miltia admitted.

"I do," Melanie nodded, "You remember that limited edition designer dress we saw the other day?"

"The super expensive one?"

"Yeah."

"Think that, but with words instead of dresses."

Miltia blinked. "Oh. Right! I get it," she paused, then scowled, "Wait. Does that mean you're saying that what we talk about is less valuable because we talk, like, all the time?"

Neo simply smirked, and turned to leave.

The pay-off was always better if you had to make them _think_ about how you just insulted them, after all.

* * *

"And in other news, in light of the recent disappearances, Vale City Police are considering moving the Curfew forward to eight PM-"

Lisa Lavender's afternoon news broadcast ended abruptly as the television was turned off.

"Hey!" Yang objected from her place on the common room sofa, "I was watching that!"

"While playing that game on your scroll at the same time?" Blake looked amused, "Wow, Yang. If you're this good at multi-tasking, I guess I don't need to worry about having to let you copy my notes from class any more. After all, clearly you can easily pay attention to the teachers while you-"

"All right, all right," Yang hastily conceded the point, "Maybe I wasn't watching it. But still, what gives, Ruby? You could have at least asked."

Ruby sighed. "I'm sick of it."

"Sick of what?" Sometimes, Blake genuinely couldn't tell if Yang was simply being oblivious, or if her blunt questions were some kind of masterful ploy to get people to open up about their problems. She tended to assume the latter – while Weiss and Blake were both academically intelligent, Yang was someone, probably the only girl on the team in fact, who she would describe as being 'socially intelligent. She understood people and how to speak to them like nobody else Blake knew.

"You know what, Yang," Ruby dropped herself onto the sofa with a frown, "I'm sick of hearing about all of this going on out in the city while I'm sitting in here doing… oh, I don't know," she gritted her teeth, "Sparring practice, or falling asleep in Port's class, or homework!" She clenched her fist, "We're supposed to be huntresses! We should be doing something about it!"

Blake gave a mental sigh. Once again, Ruby's ideal of how the world should work was coming into conflict with how the world actually worked. That if bad things happened, good people should stop them, and that was the end of it. There were many days when she honestly wished she, like Ruby, wasn't as cynical as she was - self-trained to expect the worst, because, between both the actions of the White Fang and the treatment of Faunus that had led to said actions, she had seen and experienced some of the worst humanity had to offer.

She frowned at herself for the thought. That wasn't really fair to Ruby at all - the younger girl had, after all, suffered her own tragedies. She knew from what little she had picked up from both Ruby and Yang about the topic that the death of Ruby's mother and the subsequent break-down of her father had left a deep scar that still refused to heal. She wondered, not for the first time, how Ruby managed to fit her own bad experiences into her optimistic, some would even say naive, world-view.

"Okay," Yang nodded, "So what should we be doing instead? What's your plan?"

That brought Ruby up short. After a few moments of thought, she slumped. "I don't know," she said miserably, "But anything has to be better than this."

"Ruby," Yang began gently, "I get it. I really do. It makes me want to grind my teeth and punch something every time I hear about another person going missing. But there are dozens, hundreds even, of people trying to fix this already. We can't always be the ones to save the day, you know. Sometimes we've gotta let someone else have a turn."

"The authorities have more resources and experience handling this sort of thing than we ever will," Blake offered, "I'm sure they'll get to the bottom of it. If we get involved, we might even hurt their investigations without knowing it."

"Hurt whose investigations?" Weiss asked absently as she walked into the common room.

"Ruby feels like we should be doing something about the disappearances," Yang explained.

"Oh, are we finally having this conversation, then?" Weiss sat down on the sofa with them, "I wondered how long it would take," she blinked at the surprised looks she got, "What? Ruby has been getting more and more agitated by this every day. It was always going to reach a boiling point eventually. So, fill me in, where are we so far?"

"Blake and Yang were just telling me that we can't solve all the problems by ourselves and we should leave it for the police and huntsmen to deal with," Ruby offered.

"Ah, good, that saves me some work. Well then, Ruby, I have two questions for you," Weiss began, "The first would be, why do _you_ feel that we, personally, should be the ones to resolve this, and not any of the multiple other groups and organisations, all of whom far more suited to the task than we are, who are trying to do the same thing?"

"Well," Ruby thought about it for a moment, "The day at the docks. The big fight, with the White Fang guys and that Adam guy and Penny," she winced, probably still remembering the girl getting sliced in half, "What did we do?"

"I almost got myself killed, you nearly did as well but not before knocking a White Fang leader all around the docks, and then we were saved by a criminal before Weiss and Yang brought down two drop-ships full of White Fang members," Blake listed off.

And hadn't _that_ been an eye-opener. Before the incident at the docks, if you had asked Blake, objectively, who the most dangerous fighter on the team was, she would have said it was either Yang or herself. Now? It was Ruby. It was definitely Ruby.

It took everything she had and intentionally acting out-of-character to catch Adam off guard and even land a hit on him. Then, right as she was about to get killed, Ruby appeared and battered him around like a training dummy in one of the most one-sided minutes of combat she had ever witnessed. Unfortunately, it still hadn't been enough, but seeing what her team leader was capable of when she really cut loose at just fifteen years of age certainly made her wonder just how good Ruby was going to be when she was seventeen, or twenty, or twenty-five.

"Nope," she was brought back from her musings by Ruby shaking her head, "You're looking at it all wrong, see."

Blake tilted her head curiously. "How so?"

"Well, that Adam guy wouldn't have been caught if not for us, right? And all of those White Fang guys would have gotten away too if not for Weiss and Yang coming in and wrecking their drop-ships."

"I still can't believe I did that," Weiss mumbled, still smarting from the month of detentions she had gotten for commandeering one of the School's own drop-ships.

"Well," Blake conceded, "Yes, that's right, I suppose."

"So, we helped," Ruby said simply, "Not the police, not the official huntsmen, not the Atlas guys coming in on those super-cool flying ships, _us_. And then what did you two do?" She pointed at Blake and Weiss.

"The press conference," Weiss replied softly.

"Yep!" Ruby gave her a thumbs up, "You went on the TV and then you helped, _again,"_ she stressed, _"_ You know I don't normally pay attention to that kind of stuff, but even I've seen the stories on the news about people who used to be in the White Fang turning themselves in because of that speech you did."

Blake blushed uncomfortably, the instinctual response she still hadn't managed to repress when people praised her for doing that conference.

"You three are asking me why I think we should start helping," Ruby folded her arms and glared at them all, "I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I don't think we should _stop_."

Weiss was the first to reply. "I've planned this conversation out in my head for days," she admitted, "And I never imagined your reply would sound that convincing."

Yang chuckled, "Yeah, she does have a point. We're already kinda knee-deep in saving the city, really, aren't we? But what was the second question, Weiss?"

"Oh," Weiss recovered from the back foot she had seemingly been put firmly on, "The second question was; do you really think that we, students not even out of our first year of training, are ready to handle a city-wide menace that is eluding the police and the other authorities while making dozens of people disappear?"

"Doesn't matter," Ruby said firmly, "If I stood by and did nothing while even a single person got taken away, or hurt, or even killed, because I didn't think I was ready to stop it? I wouldn't deserve to be a huntress anyway."

Blake felt any retort she may have had die on her lips.

There it was. The other side of the naivete coin. Sometimes, Ruby would say something, or do something, that made you honestly wonder if, on the day she truly realised that the world didn't work the way she thought it did… she would simply put on that glare of hers, then buckle down and make it.

Blake felt a hint of shame creep up as she considered Ruby's words. Hadn't she left the White Fang to fight injustice, to help people, to atone for her crimes? And yet, here she was, telling a _real_ hero that they shouldn't try to help because it was someone else's problem.

She glanced at Yang, who had that look in her eye that she often had around Ruby – full of pride, with a hint of worry. She could tell the older sibling was convinced. Blake glanced over at their other team-mate.

Weiss, for her part, stared at Ruby for a moment, before bringing her hand up to grasp the bridge of her nose and letting out a long-suffering sigh. "One of these days," the heiress said wryly, "We're all going to learn to stop underestimating you. Fine, okay. You make very good arguments. Not _logical_ ones, but good ones non-the-less. We're saving the day, yet again. So what's the plan?"

That cut Ruby's moment short. The girl underwent a startling metamorphosis from confident world-saver to socially-awkward teenager as she pressed her index fingers together. "Erm…"

"You don't have one, do you," Weiss sighed, "Well, that's an excellent start."

"Well, er," Ruby tried to salvage the situation, "You and Blake are both smart! Do you have any ideas?"

Weiss frowned. "I'm afraid things like this aren't really my forté, Ruby. My private schooling on how to deal with kidnappers basically amounted to 'Don't go too far away from your guard detail and never speak to anyone who hasn't been vetted by the Schnee Dust Company.' As you can imagine, that advice lost practicality quite quickly as I grew up."

Blake thought about it as they all turned to her. "Well," she mused out loud, "If I wanted to catch the person or thing that was kidnapping people, I'd want to try and catch them in the act."

"Well, yeah, but that's easier said than done," Yang pointed out as she leaned back into the sofa, "There's a load of people in Vale and any one of them could be a victim."

"Right," Blake agreed, "But what if we gave them a fake 'victim' of our own?"

Ruby, easily having the best head for tactics of any of them, grasped it quickly. "So we lure them out with our fake helpless kidnap victim, then catch them red-handed?"

"Exactly."

"That could work," Weiss tapped her chin in thought, "But who would play the victim? Blake and I are too well-known, and I'm not sure either of you two could fool someone into thinking you were helpless anything, unless Ruby went without Crescent Rose, which is absolutely NOT a risk we are going to take."

They thought it over for a moment.

"So, basically, what we need," Yang began slowly, "Is someone really, really crappy. Someone so crappy that, just by looking at them, you can tell how crappy they are and there is absolutely no way you could possibly imagine that someone could fake that kind of crappiness."

"I would have put it differently, but yes, I would think so," Weiss agreed.

They all shared a long look.

"No," Weiss objected immediately, "Absolutely not."

"Why not?" Yang asked, grinning.

"Pyrrha will _kill us_. Kill us _dead_ ," Weiss stressed.

"Nora would probably back us up, though," Ruby chirped, clearly pleased with the idea.

"And Ren will go along with whatever Nora is doing," Blake mused in agreement.

"She will murder us so comprehensively they'll have to burn our birth certificates so that we were never born in the first place," Weiss shook her head in desperation, seeing that she was clearly outvoted, " _We'll_ be the ones who disappear, and not because of terrorists or monsters!"

"So, it's settled, then," Ruby nodded firmly, "Let's go ask him now."

"I really don't think this should count as being 'settled'! Wait, where are you going?! Everyone? I really think we should put it to a vote – actually, hold on, let's not do that, but even still – wait, come back!"

* * *

"Hi, Jaune!" the blonde-haired boy looked up from his comic to see Ruby, standing in front of the rest of team RWBY, beaming at him, "We need your help!"


	5. Product Testing

**Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY, it belongs to Rooster Teeth.**

* * *

"No," Pyrhha said firmly into the silence of the courtyard, "Absolutely not. It's far too dangerous."

The first step of Team RWBY's new self-appointed quest was going about as well as could have been expected. Pyrrha, the stumbling block they all knew they would have to try and get past, was being as solid here as she was when defending against attacks in the ring.

"But Jaune is the only one of us here who could convincingly pull it off," Yang pleaded, "We need his help if we're going to do this."

"I vote yep," Nora raised her hand cheerfully. Blake had predicted that one perfectly, not that it was particularly difficult to see that Nora would pretty much leap at the chance to do something chaotic, dangerous, or better yet, both.

"And why do you need to do this?" Pyrrha rejoined, "Why not leave it for the authorities? We're students, we shouldn't be involving ourselves in this kind of thing."

"We've made a difference in stuff we weren't supposed to get involved with before," Yang said, crossing her arms, "Like the docks."

" _Still_ voting yep over here."

"Several of you were lucky to escape the carnage at the docks with your lives," Pyrrha retorted, getting actively agitated for the first time since Blake had known the girl, "That sort of situation is too risky for anyone of us, never mind Jaune, he's not ready yet -" her rant was momentarily paused by Ren placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Perhaps," he said evenly, "We should let Jaune decide what he is and isn't ready to do?"

Pyrrha paused, calming down. "You're right," she turned to Jaune, "I'm sorry, Jaune. Please tell them what you think of this."

"I want to help them out," Jaune said after a moment.

"What?" Pyrrha looked dismayed, "Jaune, don't get me wrong, you've been improving by leaps and bounds since we started training, but this is something very real and very dangerous. If you are set on helping the world, that is fantastic, but I would recommend against getting involved in this sort of... mission," she seemingly had to grasp for an appropriate word to describe their impromptu quest, "For at least a few months while we work on your technique and find your semblance."

"Yeah, but," Jaune frowned, "They need the me that's sitting here now, not the me that would be sitting here after a few more months of training with you. The crappy Jaune," his eyes narrowed as the members of Team RWBY looked abashed, "Oh, come on. We're all thinking it and it's not wrong. Seriously, guys, I don't mind."

Pyrrha frowned. "Don't be harsh on yourself, Jaune. I don't think any of us are ready for this kind of thing, not just you..." Looking around at the rest of her team, it seemed she could see she was outvoted. She sighed. "I suppose this will happen whether I want it to or not, won't it?"

"At the same time, I would really rather the strongest person present was not going along with this unwillingly," Weiss spoke up. The heiress shared a look with Yang and Blake, who both nodded.

They all turned to Ruby. "Ruby, do the thing," Yang ordered.

Ruby scratched her head. "...what thing?"

"You know," Yang began to explain, "That thing you did when you convinced us all to go along with this, when we were all like 'nope' and you did the thing and then we were all like 'yep'."

"Uhm… do you mean talking?" Ruby blinked, looking confused.

"Yeah, that," Yang agreed, "Do it to Pyrrha."

"Okay?" Ruby agreed hesitantly, "So, er, Pyrrha..."

 _Five minutes later..._

"So before they can take Jaune, I will intercept along with Blake and Ren, then we – wait, what am I doing again? What is this? And why do I feel so strongly about it?" Pyrrha's tone went from passionate enthusiasm to dazed confusion as she stared at the highly-detailed battle plan she had helped write down with a piece of chalk on the wall, complete with a diagram of a hypothetical street and angles of approach calculated down to the degree.

"I know, right?" Weiss gave her a commiserating pat on the shoulder as Yang gave Ruby a victorious thumbs up. "Don't worry. It happened to us, too."

"...You know, that was a whole lot of long, boring conversation that basically boiled down to 'Nora was right'," said girl pointed out, "This is more proof that things would work much better if people just agreed with me in the first place instead of having to _think_ about it all the time! Right, Ren?"

Ren, seemingly imagining such a world, shuddered in horror.

Meanwhile, from an open window some distance above them, two pairs of ears twitched, and a palm met its accompanying forehead in a display of silent exasperation.

* * *

The clock ticked five in the afternoon, causing a general outpouring of relief in the office. Jennifer Derais was among them as she got up from her desk and went over to grab her jacket from the coat stand.

She blinked when she realised it was not there. She went to move closer, to make sure it hadn't fell to the ground, but was stopped by a tap on the shoulder.

"Hey, Jenny," she turned to see one of her co-workers holding up her jacket, "Is this yours? I think someone put it on one of the other coat stands by mistake, I almost thought it was mine as it looked really similar."

She glanced at the jacket, seeing the tell-tale symbol she'd had stitched into the sleeve. "It is, yes. Thank you, Gwen."

"No problem," the other woman waved her off, "See you on monday!"

"Yes, see you then," Jennifer nodded. She never noticed the tiny device that had been planted on the inside of the collar.

* * *

As the rest of her fellow workers left the office, Gwen made a discreet call. "Hello? Yes, it's me. I'm just calling to make sure you know that the package should be on the way, so keep an eye out for it."

" _That is good,"_ the indistinct voice replied over the phone, _"Your able service in this matter has been noted. You will find the recompense we have previously discussed delivered to your home shortly."_

"Okay," the woman agreed, "I'll keep an eye out."

She didn't know who the hell her co-worker had pissed off, and she didn't really care. The pay-off she was getting for nothing more than putting a tiny little machine on the inside of a jacket collar was frankly too good to ask awkward questions.

* * *

It was later that evening that Jennifer got a call.

" _Miss Derais,"_ the familiar, gravelly voice sounded over the phone, _"We need to talk."_

"Griswold?" she bit her lip warily, "Why are you calling me now? My next payment isn't due for another week."

" _Indeed, and you have always endeavoured to_ _make all payments on schedule_ _,"_ her debtor responded with his usual cold, unfeeling demeanour, _"However, there has been a change in our agreement. Specifically, in who owns your debt to me."_

"What?" her blood went cold, "What does that mean?"

" _It means that someone has bought up your debt,"_ Griswold replied, _"They advised me they will be changing your schedule, and will be coming to retrieve the first payment from you tonight. In cash, as per our previous agreement."_

"What?! But they can't – why did you sell it? I was making every payment," she asked desperately.

" _The man who bought your debt is not a man someone like me can simply refuse,"_ Griswold replied dispassionately, _"I saw fit to call you to advise you of the change in circumstance, but I'm afraid our interactions, charming though they have been, are at an end. I wish you luck in all of your endeavours."_

The call ended, leaving a shell-shocked woman holding the phone.

She ran into the living room to check her purse. Opening it and doing a quick count, she realised she was a whole two hundred short for the next payment. She considered asking whoever was coming for more time – but Griswold had been cold, hard and unforgiving when it came to making any kind of change in the schedule, and anyone who _he_ was afraid to say no to was not likely to be any more lenient.

She would have to go out to the nearest cash point and get more money.

A very dangerous thing, given current events, but she knew what could happen if she missed a payment…

Minutes later, she was leaving her front door. Drawing her jacket tightly around herself, she walked as quickly as she could.

The nearest cash point was outside the local corner store – about a five minute walk from her home. It was the most terrifying five minutes of her life – twitching and almost jumping at every noise, no matter how distant, constantly thinking that the next thing she would hear would be something jumping out of the shadows to get her.

She reached the cash point, and quickly withdrew the money she needed, looking over her shoulder the entire time.

The journey back was no less fraught with potential terror – but she made it as far as her street with nothing happening. There were not many people out on the streets at this time – even she shouldn't have been, really, given the curfew, but needs must.

She twitched as she caught a faint noise from behind her. Whirling around, she saw nothing, but another sound had her turning toward the entrance to the alley behind her street.

Something stirred in the shadows. She stood, paralysed by fear as a shape became visible…

...And breathed a sigh made up of equal parts relief and self-admonishment when she saw it was one of the neighbour's cats.

Not wasting any more time, she quickly hurried down the street, and entered her home.

* * *

"So? Where are we, minions?"

Roman sat patiently as one of his employees observed a holographic screen – on the screen was a map of Vale, and a small, blinking dot could be seen, currently stationary.

"Looks like this one was a miss, boss," the underling replied, "She got home and dry."

Roman sighed. "Tell the boys we send to collect that payment to pick up the tracker on her jacket, too," he ordered, "There's no use wasting good money."

"That was one of the ones from the stolen shipment, boss."

"Then there's no use wasting the fruit of our hard, illicit labours," Roman groaned, "Just... get it done, will you?"

"Got it, boss."

"..." Neo tilted her head.

"Well, no, I didn't really expect to catch them with the first attempt," Roman admitted, calming down, "But it would have been ironic, wouldn't it? Still, to use your strange little fish-related metaphors, there are plenty of fish in the sea. We'll keep doing this until we get one on the hook."

Neo nodded. The plan was fairly simple, the mark of most plans which were likely to succeed. They would have trackers planted on people who they knew they could pull strings on, and pull said strings to force those people into making trips outside in the night. Not just debts, of course, if they kept doing doing the same thing over and over, they would end up leaving a pattern, which Roman would rather have avoided if at all possible.

But there were plenty of other levers available to Vale's premier crime lord and information broker. Roman had blackmail on hundreds of members of society both grand and humble, he had a leash on every remotely major dealer and half the junkies from the shopping district to the docks, crooked cops on speed-dial waiting to pick up their brown envelopes, and others… all people who could be pushed into making late-night trips alone, give the right incentive, threat or powerful hallucinogenic intoxicant.

And in doing so, all would be potentially tempting targets for their mysterious kidnapping cartel. No, the first try was never going to be a success, but the fifth? The tenth? The twentieth? Those were potentially far more promising.

"We'll find them eventually," Roman stated firmly, eyes fixated on the large screen, "What we need more solid plans in place for is what's going to happen when we do."

Neo raised a curious eyebrow. "..."

"'No, 'just send you in' isn't a viable plan any more," Roman rolled his eyes at her sarcasm, "Really, Neo. You think I don't know that we're playing in a different ball park, here? I only _wish_ we were back in the old days, when you could tear apart pretty much anything that got in our way with a hand tied behind your back."

Neo nodded soberly. So far, they had only met four people who she knew she couldn't handle in a fight – Ozpin, Cinder, the blonde-haired teacher from Beacon who went toe-to-toe with Cinder at the warehouse, and Qrow - but four was still many more than they ever would have met when they were running small-time thieving gigs.

Looking into Qrow Branwen a bit more deeply was a particularly sobering experience. Shortly after meeting the man for the first time, both Roman and Neo both felt like they had heard his name before, and the former decided to dig up some information about their new 'liason' from their network of contacts.

It turned out they _had_ heard his name before.

On a list of names for bad people to run away from, really fast. Near the top, for that matter. Which was probably a part of the reason why Ozpin had 'assigned' him to them.

Their initial instincts about the man were right on the money. Branwen was a terror of a huntsman, and probably one of the most individually dangerous people in the world. He had carved his way through monstrously powerful Grimm, rogue huntsmen and entire criminal organisations in his time as a warrior, and apparently did all of this both while drunk and also finding the time to teach kids how to be as potentially terrifying as he was.

A small part of Neo couldn't help but wonder how many more people like that they were likely to meet before this was all done. A larger part of Neo, on the other hand, was pondering over a different dilemma – how to reach that level herself.

After all, all the most successful life forms could adapt to their surroundings… and when faced with a bigger pond, the only way to stay alive?

Was to become a bigger fish.

And Neo, overachiever that she was, intended to become a goddamn shark.


	6. Competitive Markets

**A/N: Hello, everyone! Yes, I'm not dead, and neither is this fic! I just happened to have an unfortunate writing slump at the worst possible time.**

 **To make up for it, here, have a big one!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or anything to do with RWBY, it all belongs to Rooster Teeth.**

* * *

"...You are cleared to proceed to phase two."

* * *

"Boss,"

As his mind struggled for an answer he didn't have, Roman idly realised that he really should have taken the time to actually learn the names of some of his minions. At some point. Hell, the only one he remembered with any regularity at this point was Han, and that was only because killing him helped start this whole sorry mess off.

Refusing to let his mind wander back to old times (or relatively old, he liked to live in the moment, after all), he settled for an appropriate answer. "What?"

"I was saying, we still don't have any hits, boss. I think today's another write off."

Roman sighed, observing the map of vale. The digitised map had cost him a ton, and while it was pretty useful anyway, even then its' regular uses did not justify the price he'd paid for it. The only way this would turn into a solid investment would be if it actually got him a result on their kidnapping ring, and instead he was sitting, watching the road journey of a drug-addled, waster of an addict who they tagged at the charming little corner of Vale affectionately known by those unfortunate enough to be aware of it as the 'Junkie Junction'.

He blinked.

"Hold up," he pointed at the blip, "That one. That's the addict, right?"

"Yeah, boss."

"The one who we tagged on Tuesday. Who seemed to be permanently in possession of, at most, ten percent of his faculties."

"That's the one."

"So what's he doing in an automobile?" Roman asked with a raised eyebrow, "On a journey south, toward the agricultural district, even. I doubt someone like him is particularly interested in growing crops, at least, not the legal kind. On top of that, the drive looks like it was pretty smooth, so I doubt he's behind the wheel."

"Someone could be giving him a lift?" One of his men suggested.

"Or someone could have stuffed him into the back of a van," Roman responded, "Let's keep an eye on that one and see where it ends up."

Roman's interest was peaked even further when, after a good hour of movement, the dot finally came to a stop in a rather unlikely place.

"What do we know about that building," he ordered.

"It's an abandoned grain storage facility, Boss," one of his men said after taking a moment to check their scroll, "One of the ones meant to process food for the Mountain Glenn expansion."

"And when Mountain Glenn died, so did the reason to invest in the storage facility," Roman mused, "So it fell out of use, did it? No regular maintenance?"

His minion nodded.

"The perfect place to hide all kinds of interesting things... drugs, victims, bodies," Roman listed off., "We may have hit the jackpot."

He considered the possibility of contacting Qrow right there. However, this was, at best, currently a hunch and he really wanted more proof before he contacted the man who he really had to impress unless he wanted the metaphorical loop around his neck to get uncomfortably tight.

"Someone find Neo and some transportation," Roman decided, "We're going to scout this place out and make sure it's what we're looking for, first."

"What if it's just a bunch of junkies, Boss?"

"Then we kill them and dump the bodies outside the walls for the Grimm to eat," Roman said dispassionately, "I can think of a few things I could use a place like that for."

* * *

Jaune resisted the urge not to visibly gulp.

Sure, it had sounded like such a good idea at the time. 'All you have to do is be yourself, Jaune,' they said. 'Nothing will happen to you, we've got you covered' they said.

He mentally cursed his hero complex. And the fact that Ruby was so gosh-darn persuasive. Because it was ultimately a mixture of these two things that had gotten him in the situation he was in now; walking through the streets of Vale at night, jumping at every little noise he heard, both real and imagined.

As if to prove a point, a nearby bush rustled, making him nearly jump out of his skin. After a moment, when it was clear that no ambush would be emerging from the small speck of greenery to be found in this part of the urban landscape, he almost relaxed again. "Just the wind," he said aloud, "It was just the wind, Jaune."

He wondered what the others were doing.

* * *

Blake felt kind of bad, watching their impromptu bait meander through the streets like the first victim in a horror movie from her position atop a nearby building. If she was being frank, she felt that there was absolutely no way they'd see any kind of result today – the chances of the kidnappers stumbling across Jaune on their first night out were microscopic. Nontheless, as the stealthiest people in their group, it fell to her and Ren to watch Jaune and be the first to intercept the mysterious attackers if they took the bait.

Jaune was, of course, clearly absolutely terrified down there. Every time a rat scurried along an alleyway, he was practically a step away from screaming like a small child. It must have been rather nerve-wracking for him. Out here, like this, every noise must have sounded like impending doom, even the wind.

She paused. She then caught the eye of Ren, who was crouched next to her.

 _It's not windy tonight_ , she mouthed.

Ren blinked, then realisation set in, and he returned to his watch with even more focus than he was showing before.

Blake, on the other hand, narrowed her eyes as another faint 'crack' rang out – it could have been any manner of generic city noise, but what bothered her was the timing. It was starting to feel like the noises were almost… routine.

Realisation set in as she realised what she was hearing. Small, indiscriminate noises, repeatedly around the target, happening at set intervals. The target would get used to the pattern – at which point you deviated, and made two noises happen in short succession. The target would react to the anomaly in the pattern, and turn to face the odd noise out, allowing you to come in from another direction.

She felt herself gape in disbelief. She recognised this. Heck, she and Adam _invented_ this. Were they genuinely lucky enough to strike gold on the first night?

She reflected that if they were pulling this move, this must have been one of the members that Adam trained personally. Which was fine – it meant she knew what was going to happen next. She nudged Ren.

 _Get ready to move on my signal,_ she mouthed. He merely nodded, looking tense. His level of focus and lack of unnecessary questions had impressed Blake, tonight. For a moment, she wondered where he had learned to sneak around, then remembered that he had known Nora for most of his life, and mentally filed it in the box marked 'things I probably don't want to know'.

She scanned the area, observing the potential angles of attack, considering where she would attack from, if it was her. Picking out the best potential spots for the distraction and the attack, she pointed Ren toward the latter – while he was surprisingly competent, she was still better at stealth, and for this trick, the one causing the distracting noise usually had to be the stealthiest of the pair, because they had to remain undetected while the target's attention was focused in their direction, so it was better for her to take that one.

Another crack rang out, followed swiftly by a rustle. Jaune whirled around.

 _Go!_

* * *

Jaune didn't know what had happened. One minute, a rustling noise caught his attention, the next, there was a loud bang, a yell of pain, and the painful-sounding crunch of a body smacking against the floor.

He blinked as he realised he was looking at Ren, standing over an unconscious, dark-clothed hooded individual. One wearing a mask. Ren gave him a quiet nod.

Noises from behind him made him turn around, only to blink at the sight of Blake, kneeling on the back of another masked ambusher, Gambol Shroud at his throat.

"You know," Blake commented to her growling captive, sounding unusually amused, "If you're going to try and out-stealth me, you probably shouldn't try to do it using a trick Adam and I came up with when I was eight years old to _steal cookies from the jar_."

Before the man could respond, she smacked him over the head, knocking him out.

* * *

Several minutes later, the three of them, along with the other five members of their group, stood guard over their bound, gagged captives, an uncomfortable silence having set over them.

"So..." Weiss spoke up, "What do we do now?"

"Well," Ruby bit her lip, "We convince them to tell us what they know?"

One of the captured men snorted. Yang leaned down and pulled down his gag. "Something funny, pal?"

"Yeah," he chuckled, "You green-as-grass kids aren't going to get a damn thing out of us. We'll never talk to a bunch of huntsman wannabes."

Blake winced. He was right. She had seen how the White Fang got information out of people, just before the end. She didn't have the stomach for it. She doubted any of them did – aside from finding the enemy in the first place, this was always the part that she was sure would stump them.

"We'll make you talk," Yang said dangerously, clenching her fist, "I'm pretty damn good at getting information out of lowlives."

"Yang," Ruby stepped in firmly, "No. We're not beating information out of anyone who can't fight back."

"I could untie him first."

"That wouldn't change anything -"

"That's what I'm talking about," the White Fang member snorted, cutting off Ruby "Naive little brats. You don't have the guts to make us talk."

"Why you little -" Yang's reply was cut off again when Jaune stepped forward.

He sighed, and put a weary hand on Nora's shoulder. "Nora," he said gravely, "We need them sane enough to talk. Or," he corrected, "At least one of them."

The lively girl's answering grin sent a shiver up Blake's spine. "You've got it."

"What," the man rolled his eyes, "You think I'm scared of some little girl who looks like she's got a few screws loose? Wait, what are you doing?" He asked, slightly less confident as said girl bodily picked up him and his partner and hefted them over her shoulders.

"Jaune?" Ruby asked, confused.

"Don't worry," Jaune reassured her, "Nora's got this. No violence. Trust me."

"Okay..." the other team leader present agreed uncertainly.

"Come on, guys," Nora said happily, voice getting fainter as she skipped around the corner with her two now-struggling loads, "We're gonna be such _good_ friends! Isn't that great? You can always use more friends, right? At least, that's what my grandma used to say, before that whole thing with the wood chipper and the neighbours dog! And his cat. And the neighbour..."

Around twenty minutes later, Nora came back with their captives, dumping them both at the feet of the assembled group. The one who hadn't trash-talked them was rocking back and forth, staring at nothing.

"Twenty-seventh verse… it can't be the same as the first," he said hauntedly, "It can't, can it? It can't. It can't. It just can't..."

"I'll talk," the other begged, "I'll talk, I'll tell you everything I know, even some shit I don't know, hell I'll fucking sing and dance as long as you just keep her away from me!"

"Okay," Yang replied in bemusement, "Tell us where you were supposed to take the kidnap victims."

"An abandoned grain storage facility in the eastern side of the agricultural district, not far across the river," he rattled off without preamble.

"Show us where on the map," Yang ordered, bringing up a map on her scroll. The terrified terrorist promptly pointed it out.

"That's quite the distance to travel holding a captive," Weiss frowned, "How were you supposed to get back?"

"We have a van! It's around the corner! We were supposed to stuff the victims in and drive there!"

"Keys," Yang declared, "Now."

"My left pocket!"

Sure enough, Yang fished out a set of keys for a small commercial vehicle. She gave the rest of them a grin. "Anyone up for a little road trip? I'm driving."

"Why don't we go on foot?" Ruby asked, "It's not too far."

"We're going into a fight, right?" Yang shrugged, "May as well save all that energy we'd use jogging and jumping over roofs."

There was a round of agreement at this.

"What do we do about him?" Blake pointed at the man who was trying, and failing, to edge away from Nora.

"Leave him tied up here and call in the police," Nora opined cheerfully, "He's learned that being a terrorist is a bad thing and he shouldn't do it any more! Haven't you, pal?"

"YES! I mean, yes! Bad! Very bad! I not do! Not any more, I'll turn myself in, I'll give to charity, I'll hold doors open in the street and pick up my litter and oh god don't let her get me," six members of the group (minus Nora and Ren, who looked rather unsurprised) stared in disbelief as what a few minutes ago had been a hardened terrorist broke down and sobbed on the floor.

"Well..." Ruby sighed, "I guess that's okay, then."

Blake joined the others in staring at Nora. She gave them all a thumbs up and a big grin.

It was at that point that Blake realised that her 'things I don't want to know about Nora' list had, somewhere down the line, become larger than the list of things she actually knew about Nora.

Suddenly, she felt her ears twitch. A sound. She turned around, eyes scanning the surrounding area.

"Blake?" Someone asked her, but she was focused on trying to find the source.

After a moment, she slowly relaxed, and turned to the one who had questioned her. "Sorry, Yang. I thought I heard something, but… looks like it was nothing."

She gave the buildings to their back one last suspicious glance, before turning to join the others.

Ruby and Pyrrha proceeded to grill the man relentlessly on everything he knew about the group of buildings, their inhabitants, the captives and the defences, before, after a few minutes, they were ready to jump in their newly-requisitioned vehicle and head out.

Or, at least, they thought they were ready.

* * *

"Okay, we're on foot from here."

Roman stretched his legs slightly upon leaving the car. It had been a while since he had to do any real sneaking around, and he was determined not to be rusty – they had to travel on foot for the last leg of the route toward the grain storage facility, as an approaching car in the dead of night would naturally raise some serious alarm bells for anyone with a brain, which was precisely what they were hoping to find.

"..." Neo shot him a concerned look.

"Nah," Roman shook his head, "There's only two people in our employ who are good enough at not getting caught for me to trust them with this, and they're both standing right here. It's too risky even for one of us, so it's gotta be the both of us."

"…?" Neo frowned.

"Of course I've taken precautions," Roman rolled his eyes, "I made sure the twins were both on separate jobs tonight, and they're the only ones with the muscle and the brains to try anything."

"..." Neo shrugged in acceptance.

"Well then," Roman smirked, "Let's go. Remember, we're in, confirming that it's what we came for, and we're out again. Just like old times."

"…" his colourful partner pointed out wryly.

"When you move up as quickly as we do, Neo," Roman shot back, "A few months is a pretty damn long time."

She conceded the point with a gracious nod as they began moving quietly toward their goal. The landscape was uncomfortably flat, but there was just enough by way of cover for them to do what Roman felt was a decent job of going unseen.

Finally, after a few short minutes that felt so much longer, their objective came into view. The run-down complex had several parts – dominating the skyline were several very large grain silos, while the middle of the facility was home to a large factory warehouse building. Next to that was a somewhat smaller, administrative building. The facility had no in-built defences apart from a surrounding metal wire fence, long since compromised by time and lack of maintenance.

More importantly, there were lights on, in both buildings.

Quite a few, in fact.

Roman considered the buildings. The silos would be a poor place to keep captives – they were too far away from the central buildings where the current tenants seemingly resided, there was the potential risk of an escape attempt. They were more likely to hold them in either the warehouse or the administration building. Of the two, he favoured the latter – blindfold someone and lead them to the one room in a warehouse and they could potentially find their way out if they managed to slip their bonds and blindfolds. Lead them through several corridors and rooms in a building and they would have a lot more trouble.

He indicated the second building to Neo, who simply nodded and took the lead. Slowly, but steadily, they began approaching the building, which was when they noticed their second, very telling lead. Sentries.

Specifically, White Fang sentries.

That was promising.

* * *

They were not ready. Nobody could _ever_ be ready.

For Yang's driving, that was.

Blake was jealous of Ruby's apparent immunity. Their team leader seemed entirely unconcerned by the fact that the old van they were currently travelling in was shaking more than Nora after seven energy drinks. Or the fact that Yang's approach to driving a van was apparently the same as her approach to engaging in a fist-fight – lots and lots of ducking and weaving.

While the rest of them, sans Nora - who was currently screaming to go faster - and Ren, who once again seemed utterly unflappable, were currently curled up in balls and hoping not to die, Ruby was hard in thought as she considered the small map of the group of buildings they would soon be assaulting that she had obtained from their 'willing informant'.

Blake marshalled her bravery, and slowly shuffled over, steadying herself as the van took a harsh corner. "You're looking very focused."

Ruby glanced at her. "Just thinking about the best way to go in. It sounds like there's a lot of them there and they're really dug in."

Blake frowned, trying to ignore the urge to leap on the wall as another shuddering bump rocked the vehicle. Jaune was not so strong-willed, and would later deny that he screamed like a loud, small child. "What are you thinking?"

"Well," Ruby scratched her head, "We know the prisoners are in this one," she pointed at the sketch indicating the smaller building, "But they keep their guns and most of their people in this one," she then pointed at the larger warehouse next to it. "I'm thinking we'll need to split the teams."

"RWBY and JNPR?" Blake asked.

"No," Ruby shook her head, "We need a distraction in the big one. Something loud and flashy with explosions."

"Sounds like the day I met you. Perhaps you could introduce yourself to them, too?" It was really quite impressive that Weiss was capable of throwing around verbal barbs even when scared for her life in the back of a wildly-careening van.

"Oh, ha ha," Ruby grumbled, "It wasn't my fault you shook dust up my nose and made me sneezplode."

"And yet, you're the one for whom we literally need to invent new verbs to describe a type of explosion," Weiss noted, before grimacing as she was thrown into Pyrrha by another reckless turn.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Pyrrha apologised politely, helping Weiss sit up.

"Anyway," Ruby continued, "I think if we need a group that'll get plenty of attention, it's Yang and Nora."

Blake shuddered in horror. "That makes sense."

"I know, right? Anyway, they'll go in the big building and, well, you know," she said awkwardly, "Be Yang and Nora. You and Ren are the sneakiest ones here, so you two should head into the other building and try to find the kidnap victims while Yang and Nora get their attention."

Blake nodded. It sounded good so far. "What about you four?"

"Two pairs," Ruby mused, "Me and Weiss,"

"Weiss and I," corrected the Heiress faintly from her position on the van floor.

"Me and Weiss," Ruby repeated with a small amount of vindictive joy, "Then Jaune and Pyrrha, since they're better at working together and so are we. We'll wait outside and head in depending on which of you need help," she paused, "Every good plan has reserves. Or at least, that's what Uncle Qrow said."

Blake nodded. It was a workable plan, but then again she didn't really expect anything less from the person who thought up basically all their team attacks. Only Ruby could, after hearing an off-hand comment about how Yang was a human wrecking ball, come up with a viable way to _actually make it happen_. Blake still felt the phantom pain in her arms from the long, gruelling hours of practice. 'Bumblebee' was far too cute a code-name for such an exercise in torture and misery.

Further thoughts were cut off as even Blake's exceptional sense of balance failed her due to Yang slamming on the brakes, sending everyone flying toward the front of the crew cab.

For a second or two, nothing could be heard but pained groans.

"Sorry!" Yang called over her shoulder cheerfully, "Thought I saw a dog crossing the road, but… false alarm!"

Ruby was, once again, forced to display her exceptional ability to talk people around by managing to convince everyone else in the back of the van not to murder Yang on the spot.

The upside of Yang's driving style, on the other hand, was that it cut the time spent on their journey down significantly. They were soon stopping the van a short distance away from the location that they knew held a group of White Fang members, as well as several kidnap victims.

"What's a car doing here?" Yang asked with a raised eyebrow as the rest of the group stumbled out of the back, glaring at her furiously. They took a moment to get their bearings.

"In the same place we're stopping the van?" Weiss frowned, one of the first to pull herself back together, "That can't be coincidence."

"Okay," Ruby gathered them all around, "If everyone's ready, I've got a plan..."

* * *

The large, corrugated door of the warehouse exploded inward with tremendous force, stunning the guards stood inside for a few moments and leaving a large hole, enough for several people to walk through, and easily enough for the two teenage girls who strutted inside.

"Knock knock!" Yang said with a grin.

"Ooh, ooh," Nora replied excitedly, "Who's there?"

"Wha?"

"Who's there," Nora repeated, "You said knock knock, I said who's there, ball's in your court now, Blondie!"

"...I wasn't really expecting someone to take me up on it like that," Yang admitted, "I've got nothing, sorry."

"Nothing? You shouldn't just throw out knock-knock jokes if you're not willing to go all the way -" Nora's stubborn retort was cut off as a hail of gunfire exploded toward them from the middle of the room, forcing them both to leap aside to avoid it.

The terrorists had taken the time granted by their small debate to scatter back to the other side of the huge room, taking up firing positions from behind cover and letting loose. Nora was the first to respond, Magnhild's grenade-launcher returning fire in it's typically room-shaking manner – the first shot landed on a group of three White Fang members, sending them all flying.

Yang also shot back with Ember Celica – and while her rounds were not quite as explosive as Nora's, they still packed a significant punch, as promptly experienced by the pair of gunmen who found themselves thrown to the ground by a close hit.

In response to this, the terrorists reacted – scattering into a looser formation to minimise how many would go down at once to each shot. Yang and Nora quickly realised that their enemy seemed to know what they were doing, and found themselves ducking behind cover themselves, with a large, open no-man's land between them and their enemy containing nothing but a series of metallic barrels of some kind, too small to give proper cover.

"Nora!" Yang announced, "Cover me! I'm closing the distance!"

She leaped over the metal box she had been ducking behind as a stream of grenades from Nora exploded over the heads of the shooters who would have otherwise been targeting her, allowing her a fairly clear run across the cover-less area. A couple of rounds hit her, but nowhere near enough to trouble her aura.

The terrorists were not done yet, however. Several of them appeared upon a metallic scaffold walkway that ran across the upper side of the room, and let loose with their rifles – not at Yang, but at the barrels. For a moment, Yang braced herself, expecting explosives – but this was not the case. The barrels did explode when hit, but not with flame – liquid burst forth from them, splashing out in large waves and covering both Yang and the floor.

Trying her best to ignore her disgust and anger from the seemingly oily substance getting into her hair, Yang resumed her sprint toward the White Fang members who were now splitting their fire with surprising discipline to force Nora back under cover as well. She quickly found out what the oil was for as her foot slipped on the now-frictionless floor, sending her careening to the ground. She was a sitting duck.

Nora, however, was having none of it. Magnhild switched to hammer form, and she stood back, giving a mighty swing with her hammer to send the large, metallic box in front of her rocketing across the room. It was not, however, aimed at the White Fang. The large object flew dangerously close to Yang, landing neatly in front of her with a loud crash, and with a quick burst from Ember Celica, Yang skidded toward the cover that it provided.

"Thanks, Nora!"

"You're welcome! But I think we need a Plan B, here!" Nora called back.

Yang palmed her scroll, dialling Ruby's number. "We need backup, fast! We've got a couple dozen guys firing down and..."

* * *

Another Faunus died quietly as Neo slit his throat with her parasol blade, one hand clamped over his mouth like a vice.

"They never want to talk," Roman mused quietly, "And here I thought I made for great conversation."

Making it into the series of office buildings had been difficult, but doable. Night vision made for great sentries, but Roman and Neo were experts long-practiced at dealing with people who were meant to stop them from getting into places where they were not supposed to be.

"Okay, this is getting us nowhere," he sighed, "We don't have the time to interrogate these guys properly, we need to start covering more ground. The corridor up ahead has a split – you take the right, I'll take the left. If you don't find anything, double back to this spot and meet me here."

Neo nodded with a lazy salute, leaving the room promptly after listening at the door to confirm nobody was there. Roman waited for a moment before going after her, then taking his own route through another corridor.

There were three rooms on his left. The first contained nothing but a large desk, several chairs, and a large whiteboard, clearly some kind of meeting room. The sight of the whiteboard brought back memories of the time before Neo had gotten the hang of her 'expressing herself through body language' trick, when he had once made the drunken suggestion that she communicate with a little whiteboard – they both later agreed it was a fairly stupid idea.

The next room had desks and what was clearly supposed to be space for terminals. Possibly a training room of some sort, but still not what he was looking for. Entering the last room, he realised it was the rest-room, which was somehow still functional, and he walked in just as a shocked Faunus stepped out of one of the cubicles.

Roman reacted instantly, darting forward to grab the man by the back of the head before slamming Melodic Cudgel's hooked handle against the man's throat.

"I think you know what I'm looking for," he whispered, "You have five seconds to tell me where they are and you don't suffer the indignity of dying before you even got the chance to wash your hands."

The terrorist glared at him with a mixture of fear, defiance and frustration.

"Time's up." With a quick snap, the man fell to the ground with a broken neck. Roman shoved the body in the cubicle, and shut the door, before making his way back out.

He turned to his left and continued down a further corridor – this one apparently leading to what was the cafeteria of this place. That seemed promising, at least – if they were holding a large group of people, that's where he would do it. He went to proceed toward the door.

A black blade went toward his throat, only to meet the hard edge of Melodic Cudgel. With a quick motion, he pulled down, catching the sword with the handle and yanking it out of the hand of it's owner, before his elbow lashed out behind him, catching his would-be-attacker in the face and staggering them long enough to let him turn around and point his weapon at them.

"Fool me once," he grinned down at a grimacing face he certainly recognised, "Shame on you. Fool me twice… well, you're going to have to finish that one for me, because I never learned the rest of it. It didn't seem relevant, you see."

In response, Blake Belladonna glared up at him angrily from her position on the floor.

* * *

"Ozpin!"

Despite the fact that Glynda Goodwitch was one of the few people in the world who could interrupt a meeting between the headmasters of two Huntsman Academies without any kind of reprimand or issue, she still rarely did so without good reason.

This time, however, she had very good reason.

"Glynda," Ozpin looked up from the paperwork on his desk as General Ironwood regarded Beacon's combat trainer with concern, "What is it?"

"We've had word from Vale Police," she said without preamble, "They have taken a member of the White Fang into custody. This man has confirmed that the White Fang are behind the disappearances, and has also given the location of a holding area for several captives in the Agricultural district."

Both men stood up, giving her their full attention. "Another Belladonna case?" Ironwood asked, referring to the informal name given to White Fang members who had turned themselves in after the girl in question made her speech on the television.

"No, or possibly not," Glynda shook her head, "The man turned himself in after two encounters with our students. A quick check confirmed several of them are missing from their dorms – I'm sure you can guess who is missing. He also informed the police that our students were going to the location in question to try and rescue the captives themselves."

Ozpin's face became grave. "James, how soon can you have a rescue team ready to move?"

"Ozpin?" Glynda asked in surprise.

"Ordinarily, it would take at least an hour," Ironwood admitted, "Fortunately, however, one of our mobile forces built for rapid deployment is in the city, and due to their role operating beyond the walls, they are trained for search and rescue. I believe I can have them in the air in twenty minutes, maximum."

"Then please, do what you need to make it happen. I have a call of my own to make as well," he grabbed his cane as he walked around his desk, "Glynda, please provide the details of the location."

* * *

Meanwhile, in a hiding place just outside the two largest buildings in the grain storage facility, a different meeting was taking place. The sound of explosions could be heard from inside the warehouse – fortunately, Ruby, Pyrrha and Weiss had already knocked out the few sentries outside.

Ruby was thinking quickly after hearing Yang explain their predicament. "Okay," she began, "Weiss, we're going in to back up Yang and Nora. We're better at range than Pyrrha and Jaune and it sounds like they're having a gun fight in there. Jaune," she turned to her fellow team leader as Weiss nodded in the affirmative, "You two stay here and be ready to help either us or Blake and Ren if we need it."

"Got it," Jaune gulped.

"Come on, Weiss, quick!" Ruby began moving, Weiss quickly following after her.

They came to a small door at the side of the larger building.

"What's the plan?" Weiss whispered.

"Skeleton key," Ruby replied back quietly.

Weiss, remembering the move in question, nodded.

With a quick gesture of Myrtenaster, small, saucer-sized glyphs appeared just in front of the door hinges, as well as the lock – a moment later, and the ice-dust infused glyphs activated, freezing the metal of the lock and hinges. A second, larger, black glyph, this one spanning the width of the door, appeared with another gesture, before the door was pulled out of the frame and outside by an unseen force, before landing on the ground with a clatter that was fortunately masked by the sound of the explosive firefight going on inside, which had gotten far louder with the door's unfortunate passing.

Ruby grinned victoriously.

Weiss, meanwhile, sighed. "Yes, okay," she muttered loudly enough to be heard, "You said it would work and it did. I'll note that it wouldn't have gone unnoticed in any other situation, however."

Ruby entered first, Crescent Rose in its gun state. Weiss followed immediately after. They found themselves in a fairly wide corridor just beyond the main chamber of the warehouse, which lay just around a corner to their left.

The two quickly made their way to the corner.

"Can you take a look?" Ruby asked her partner.

Another glyph formed, this time forming a small, circular sheet of pure ice, formed from ice dust for the highest possible albedo to create a reflective surface. Weiss crouched down, poked it around the corner near the floor and observed.

"They have two guns covering this corridor while the rest are firing at Yang and Nora," she relayed, "Most of them are on the scaffold up above. Yang is roughly in the middle of the room, Nora's at the other side. The floor of the main room is still covered in oil."

Ruby took all of this in. "Okay… these guys really seem to know what they're doing... what if we... yeah. Okay, Weiss, Trick Shots."

"Right," Weiss nodded. "Targets?"

"I need one aimed at the floor, two at the guards covering this corridor, and a few more in the general direction of the guys shooting at Yang and Nora," Ruby explained, before she pulled one of her specialised dust cartridges from her ammunition pack and loaded Crescent Rose.

Weiss focused on the mirror, turning it this way and that, looking back at Ruby several times as she did so - her mind churning through calculations and angles at a prodigious rate.

"Okay," she said after several seconds, "Now!"

With a gesture, multiple small glyphs, similar in size to the ones used to break the door, appeared at the far wall past the corner, each one angled slightly differently, all facing into the main room.

Before the gunmen watching the corridor could react to the sudden appearance of the small, circular objects, Ruby began firing at each glyph with mechanical precision. The dust rounds collided with the centre of the glyphs, and, as things tended to do when connecting with Weiss' repel glyphs, bounced back off with similar momentum.

The first round angled off and hit the ground a few meters away from Yang's impromptu cover. The ice dust promptly activated, freezing the oil around it – the drop in temperature of the liquid quickly spread along the ground, freezing the majority of the oil into solid ice.

The second and third rounds collided with the two watchmen, each one hitting them centre-mass and taking them out instantly.

The last few were not so precise, but they did not need to be – rounds flashed out toward the gunmen up above, forcing them to break and duck as bullets shot past their heads. One lucky shot hit another marksman and knocked him clean from his feet.

Ruby and Weiss wasted no time, advancing into the main room quickly, Ruby continuing the barrage with a constant stream of fire toward the gunners up top even as she yelled out another order.

"Nora!" she called out, "Hit the floor as hard as you can!"

Nora, as she usually tended to do when told to hit things very hard, promptly and eagerly complied. Leaping out of cover, she let loose a mighty roar as she swung Magnhild over her head and smashed it down onto the ice. The blow seemed to shake the building, and it had a notable effect on the ice – namely that the solid sheet had now become a floor full of small, cracked shards.

As anyone would know, walking on a pile of broken ice is a lot easier than walking on a solid block, or even slippery oil. Yang was, once again, able to get to her feet and move effectively. She immediately did so, leaping out of cover to rush toward the side of the room where her enemy was located.

* * *

"Well, well, well," Torchwick chuckled as he stared down at her, "I wonder, if you entered this building under your own power, do you still count as being something the cat dragged in? I'm thinking yes. Are you thinking yes? Glare angrily if you think yes," her face didn't change, "I'll take that as a yes."

"What are you doing here," Blake hissed in reply, frustrated that the tables were turned on her so unexpectedly. She and Ren had been quietly making their way through the base, noting the bodies of several fallen guards, and she had been surprised and very suspicious to see the man from the docks she later found out was notorious criminal-turned 'upstanding bar owner' Roman Torchwick present in a White Fang base. Blake's immediate instinct was to grab him and question him. Unfortunately, this instinct had led her into a rather tight spot.

"Well, I'm browsing, of course," Torchwick explained, before giving a dramatic gasp at her momentary look of confusion, "What, you mean this isn't the _pet store?_ I thought they were having an open day, what with them letting you all out of your cages like this!"

Blake twitched, desperately wanting to attack him for that remark, but thought better of it as the business end of his cane pressed against her head. She couldn't make any sudden moves, here.

"Careful, now, little miss T.V. personality of the year. Let's not do anything stupid, shall we?" Torchwick said, voice turning deadly, "Curiosity may be a vicious old gal, but I _guarantee_ that I've killed more cats than she has tonight."

"Are you working with the White Fang?" Blake questioned him, trying her best to ignore the bigotry in favour of collecting information. She was pretty sure he wasn't, given the bodies they had found on the way here, but if she asked him an obvious question first he might let something slip.

He sighed audibly. "Okay, let's think back to the last time we had a little chat like this. What was I doing back then? Rhetorical question, don't answer," he quickly cut off her reply, "That's right, I was helping the city with it's pest control problem! So do you really think that I'm going to be working with the pests now?"

Somehow, Blake managed to find it in herself to glare at him even harder. "Good point. I don't think the White Fang could be in the same room as someone as discriminatory as you without killing you, never mind actually working with you."

"Discriminatory? Me?" Torchwick snorted, "Please. You Faunus have pretty flattering opinions of yourselves if you think I'd somehow _not_ hate you if not for the night vision and extra body parts."

"Okay, not discriminatory," she snapped back, "Just a jerk. If you're here to stop the White Fang, I'm sure you won't mind explaining that to the police when they get here!"

"Actually, I really, really would," Torchwick corrected her, "I don't have the best relationship with the cops, you see -" he paused as explosions began echoing from outside, "What the hell is that? It's not coming from in here. Friends of yours?"

"Only some of them."

Torchwick stiffened and Blake felt relief as two hammers cocked. Ren approached from behind the criminal, Stormflower levelled at his back.

"Oh, great," the older man groaned, "And now we've got a nice stand-off going here. We just need the tumble-weed and a bell tower, don't we?"

"I've already contacted Pyrrha and Jaune," Ren explained, "They'll be here to help with this shortly and to get the prisoners out."

"How many of you damn kids are there?" the criminal asked in frustration, "And how do you know where the prisoners are? Hell, how did you even know about this place?"

"We used a decoy, grabbed the people that showed up to take him, and got it from them," Ren explained simply.

Torchwick furrowed his brow. "...that's it? How long have you been at this?"

"This was the first night," Ren replied with a shrug.

Torchwick's face went blank.

" _What."_

* * *

The life bled out of the woman's eyes as Neo's heel crushed her throat against the ground. This was the seventh one so far – it had become mark-ably more difficult to avoid detection once the explosions had started and kicked the White Fang up into a frenzy.

Unfortunately, she hadn't found anything worth commenting on – no hoard of hidden hostages, leadership figures, nothing – and she had at least glanced in every room on the way.

Sighing silently, she decided to make her way back to the meeting spot. If Roman was there, they could make their way out while whatever was going on next-door happened – if he wasn't, she'd have to go in and find him.

"Who are yoaaaargh!" with a shattering of glass, the sudden appearance from a side-corridor, and challenge, of another White Fang grunt soon became a scream of terror with an abrupt stop as Neo looped the hook of her parasol around his neck and yanked him straight through the second-story window behind her.

As she continued to make her way out, she hoped Roman was having more luck than she was. The only thing she had achieved so far was a body-count, and while killing White Fang morons was always a net positive, they had banked a lot on actually finding some hostages with this play of theirs.

Soon enough, she found herself approaching the meeting area. There was no sign of Roman.

But someone else was there.

Neo blinked, knowing that there was something familiar about one of the two. The blonde boy with the sword and shield looked hopeless, the redhead girl with the same weaponry in a different style seemed a bit more impressive – as evidenced by the fact that she noticed Neo first.

It suddenly came to her. She'd seen this girl on the television, before. Pyrrha Nikos, the supposed tournament prodigy, famously nick-named 'The Invincible Girl'.

But why on earth would she be here, alongside some other kid who looked like he would find his own shoelaces to be a uniquely challenging opponent?

Neo didn't let these thoughts trouble her as she continued her advance. This must have been related to why everything seemed to be exploding. She had to find Roman and get out of here, or at least find out what was going on, and some rookie and a pampered princess who'd never been in a fight without the training wheels on weren't going to be a problem.

The redhead barked out a warning for the blonde. It wouldn't save him. Neo wouldn't kill them, of course – that could draw some really bad attention down on their heads if these were some of Ozpin's pupils – leaving them unconscious would be enough. Maybe she'd even be kind enough to dump them outside.

She got within striking distance of the blonde, and blurred into action. A quick kick to the temple would knock him out, and leave her in a perfect position to follow through with a leaping roundhouse kick to the head that would quickly incapacitate the girl.

Yes, as soon as she got up from her position lying down on the floor, she would do exactly that.

 _'...wait, what?'_

Alarm bells rang as Neo burst into a backwards roll to avoid the shield that slammed down on her former resting spot. How the hell had that happened? The redhead had actually moved fast enough to intercept her initial kick with that round shield and redirected her momentum to send her crashing to the ground.

She got to her feet and regarded her opponent more warily.

"I'm sorry, I don't know who you are," the girl said firmly, "But I would appreciate it if you didn't try to attack my partner."

Well.

It seemed this would be a bit more difficult than she first assumed.

"Are you going to say anything?" the other girl asked her.

It was probably more sensible to leave. But no _way_ was she letting this girl put her on the ground without paying her back in kind.

Neo smirked. "..."

At this, her opponent simply adjusted her stance. "I see. Jaune, stay back. I will try to end this as quickly as I can."

Neo felt her eyes flash pink at the insinuation that she was going to lose, here. Yes, she had underestimated the girl like a fool, but she wouldn't do so again. She took a step forward, eyeing her opponent cautiously. The tourney champ had no openings that she could see.

It looked like she would have to make her own.

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the blonde boy's loud gulp. Then, at the same instant, both girls exploded into motion.

* * *

Yang had just managed to make it to the White Fang's side of the warehouse, passing between two large metal crates, when one of the terrorists up top activated a switch. Two smaller explosions rang out from either side of her, as some kind of thick netting burst from the containers in front of Yang.

True to form, Yang attempted to go through it – which was apparently a bad idea. The netting was some kind of elastic material, probably stolen military-grade given that it didn't snap immediately when Yang decided she wanted it to, and it stretched back significantly from her charge, before springing back into place and launching Yang away like a slingshot, sending her skidding across the floor.

The fire that otherwise would have rained down on her was paused temporarily as Nora had reloaded and began bombarding the gunmen's positions with gusto.

Ruby thought frantically, eyes scanning the room. They needed to do something about the heavy weight of fire coming from up there, and they needed to do it quick, while they had these few seconds.

The answer came to her quickly.

"I have a plan! Freezerburn!" she called out, before she made a run for it toward the end of the room furthest away from the terrorists.

Their many hours of practice kicked in, before Weiss, with her usual twirling grace, activated a glyph on the ground. Yang launched herself up in the air in Weiss' direction with a shot from Ember Celica, before slamming down upon the marked target with impressive precision and a fist wreathed in flame.

The effect was instantaneous, throwing up a thick mist throughout the room, cutting out visibility entirely.

Nora's fire ended, and scattered gunshots rang out in their direction, but without the ability to focus fire and aim, they were quite ineffective.

Ruby steadied herself in a sprinter's start position. "Everyone get ready to charge when I do this!"

With a yell, she propelled herself forward as fast as she could toward the opposite side of the room. The world slowed down as she felt the familiar feeling of weightlessness she had come to associate with using her semblance, heard the muffled sound of the sonic boom she created with her instant acceleration to supersonic speed.

Meanwhile, her move had the desired effect, as the mist on their side of the room was easily dragged forward toward the White Fang's side of the room by the force of her wake. The water thickened until it became a hail of thick droplets of rain and oil that bore down on the White Fang like a cloud of watery bullets.

Weiss, Yang and Nora found themselves able to see a precious few moments before the White Fang could, and thanks to the prewarning, they were able to used these moments to their full potential. Nora launched herself on Magnhild, Weiss threw herself from a glyph, and Yang pelted herself into the air with Ember Celica.

With some effort, Ruby managed to stop herself just before she hit the wall, the force of her sudden braking slamming into the wall and sending cracks up it. This had the side effect of shaking the scaffolding above, throwing the White Fang off-balance even further.

By the time the White Fang had gotten over both the sudden comeback of visibility, the hail of high-speed water droplets and the shaking, it was too late. Three angry huntresses-to-be were already upon them. Given their attempts to keep the Huntresses at range for the entire fight, Ruby guessed that they wouldn't be a match up close, and she was right.

Yang slammed into them with vindictive glee, given that she was the one to take most of the punishment tonight, Ruby couldn't blame her. Her fists slammed one man into another even as a leg swept another woman's legs out from underneath her.

Nora took out several with one swing, while Weiss darted between them at speed, bouncing from glyph to glyph and taking out individuals. It was over in less than a minute – of over a dozen terrorists who were upon the large scaffold, all were unconscious.

After a moment, when it became clear that there was no more gunfire or other combat-related noises that were left to appear, Ruby allowed herself to relax.

And then the wall exploded.

"Did someone call for the cavalry, because trust me, it's never looked this goo..."

Ruby, Weiss, Nora and Yang stared in confusion as their classmates appeared in the warehouses' new entrance.

"Ah," Coco Adel had frozen in what was clearly supposed to be her heroic entrance pose, the rest of Team CFVY behind her observing the soaking, shattered, partially-frozen interior of the warehouse and the unconscious forms of the White Fang scattered across it with a mixture of shock and bemusement, "Well, this is awkward."


	7. New Market Competitors

**AN: Bonjour, folks! It's finally back!**

 **I've been struggling with this chapter for a hell of a long time, but I've decided that I'll never write the thing in a way I'm completely happy with, so here we are!**

* * *

"-son of a god damn BITCH!"

Roman breathed heavily as finally stopped his minute-long tirade of cursing and swearing. Blake and Ren stared with wide eyes.

"Do you have _any_ idea how much effort I've had to put in to find this place?" the thief finally managed to say something coherent, "I poured a metaphorical ton of manpower into it. I used up contacts. Called in markers. Spent day after day observing and waiting and making more phone calls just to get a god damn lead to follow. And you brats just came out here and found your way here on your first fucking night!?"

"I suppose we'll call it karma," Blake muttered.

"Please," Roman rolled his eyes, "If that actually existed, I wouldn't have made it to age twelve, never mind where I am now."

"At least you're honest."

"Maybe ten percent of the time. Okay, how about this: I'm going to put up my cane, your little girlfriend back there is going to put away those guns pointing at my back, and then we might even talk like I'm _not_ the only adult in the room."

"I'm fairly sure that insults aren't supposed to be part of a peace negotiation," Ren said flatly, his grip tightening on his guns.

"And I'm fairly sure that if the four kingdoms agreed with you there wouldn't have been a Great War," Roman grunted irritably, "Is it a deal or not?"

Reluctantly, Ren pointed his guns away, while Roman did the same. Blake took the chance to stand up, and retrieved Gambol Shroud.

"Now, explain," Blake demanded, "Why are you here?"

"The fact that you're asking me that suggests to me that this little field trip of yours isn't endorsed by Beacon," Roman shook his head wryly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that if it was, your teachers may have filled you in on some rather vital facts. Like, for example, the fact that I'm working with your oh-so-wise-and-powerful headmaster."

"Professor Ozpin wouldn't work with a criminal," Blake snapped.

"Why not?" Roman chuckled, "He let you into his school, didn't he?"

Blake's expression flickered.

"Yes," Ren came to her rescue, "But unlike you, Blake is actually repentant about the things she has done."

"Repentance is for people who get caught," the older man shrugged, "But that aside, you'd be surprised at how practical old Ozpin can be when he wants something done. The short and only answer I'm going to give you is, I've spent a long time making myself extraordinarily useful to anyone who wants to engage in some shady dealings and it really tends to pay off."

"So what was your plan, here?"

"Find the hostages, cause a few sneaky problems, get out, call in the authorities to make their big, heroic rescue while the guards were in a tizzy and I got away un-noticed," Roman said simply, "The simple plans are the best, you know? Of course, you guys being here has thrown a bit of a wrench into that, as well as some unfortunate run-ins with the goons – I think I'm getting sloppy in my old age, you know?"

"We've already notified the authorities," Blake informed him, "They're on their way as we speak."

"Well, then!" Roman clapped his hands, "While I'd simply _love_ to stick around for that, I really better be going, so how about we open this door," he waved toward the door behind him, "and save the scared, banish the Beowolf, rescue the kitten from the top of the tree or whatever it is you kids came here to do promptly so I can get the hell out of here?"

* * *

Neo closed the distance faster.

Her feet left the ground as she jumped, legs blurring into motion as a series of airborne kicks lashed at Pyrrha in quick succession. The tourney champion brought her shield up and caught every one of them, being driven back several feet by the impacts even as a pin-point thrust of a spear flickered out toward Neo's torso. Neo twisted around in the air around the spear, landing to launch another kick at her opponent's guard, but found herself stopped by the shield again even as the spear came back for another shot that came perilously close to hitting the mark.

She dropped low, leg curling around to try and sweep Pyrrha's feet, but her opponent was ready for her, dropping down to one knee so her shield offered full potential body coverage. She responded with a sweep of her own, her spear flashing in an arc to try and hit Neo while her mobility was limited.

Fortunately, Neo had worked hard to ensure that, no matter what position she was in, her mobility was never limited. Pushing herself up with her hands, she pushed herself into the air, twirling around as she did so to plant her feet on Pyrrha's shield before using it as a platform to launch herself away in a backward flip. Landing on her feet, she eyed her opponent, who had risen to her feet and watching her carefully, even more warily than before.

It was like trying to get around a one-woman phalanx. There didn't seem to be a way through that shield like this. But there was more than one way to crack a skull.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the blonde boy move forward as though to try and intervene. She could tell just by looking at him that this fight was out of his league, what did he think he could accomplish? She'd put him down quickly and-

"Jaune, stay back," Pyrrha barked. Huh. It seemed her opponent agreed with her.

"But Pyrrha-" he started to protest.

"Jaune, please," the tourney fighter pleaded, "You have made big strides, I know that more than anyone, but this opponent is too much for you right now. I can't fight her and protect you at the same time."

Giving her a look somewhat reminiscent of a kicked puppy (not that Neo would know, she had standards after all), he nodded and backed off.

Figuring that she had been way too polite in letting them have their little heart-to-heart, Neo launched herself forward again, parasol appearing in her hand. She managed to side-step the initial thrust of Pyrrha's spear then retaliated with a thrust of her own weapon, handle first. Pyrrha's shield came up once again, and Neo's blunt parasol handle skipped off the edge of the aspis.

Neo grinned.

Smoothly, she twisted the parasol and pulled back, the curved handle catching the edge of the shield and pulling it to the side even as Neo jumped into another spinning motion – this time, her right foot hit the girl's other wrist that even now was coming back around to slash with her spear-turned-short sword, while her other foot hammered down onto Pyrrha's chest, knocking her to the ground.

Not missing a beat, Pyrrha rolled backward onto one knee, shield up and spear pointing outward to stop any further advance from Neo, who was feeling satisfaction at managing to get payback for the earlier flooring she had received.

Pyrrha looked at Neo's parasol and frowned, eyes narrow, before her spear once again retracted to sword-form.

Neo went to attack again, this time opening up with a thrust of her parasol. As Pyrrha readied herself to parry it, Neo clicked the button on it, opening it up and blocking Pyrrha's view entirely even as she effortlessly pulled her blade from within the handle. In one smooth motion, she side-stepped to the left, practically gliding underneath Pyrrha's blade and going for a cut straight to the abdomen.

Suddenly, her arm jerked away, almost as though the blade it was holding was being pushed or dragged away by some sort of force. She stumbled, and winced as a heavy blow hit her back. Pyrrha's sword arm didn't stop, coming right back around for another blow – but as the weapon hit home, its intended target shattered, as though it had been made of glass.

Feeling a presence behind her, Pyrrha whirled around to attack – and found herself looking directly into the shocked and frightened face of a different girl entirely. Instead of pink and brown eyes, this one had bright green, and her hair was black instead of the multi-coloured motley atop the head of Pyrrha's opponent. This time, she was the one to stumble as she desperately avoided attacking what she assumed must have been a hostage who escaped their binding.

Her hesitation provided an opening. In a flash, the girl's palm lashed out, jabbing Pyrrha in the face and disorientating her. Not letting the opening go to waste, Neo, whose form now changed back to her usual appearance, leaped on her opponent, her legs curling around Pyrrha's neck in a vice grip. Suddenly, Pyrrha was tumbling over as Neo bodily swung down, coming to a handstand and bodily throwing Pyrrha straight through the window of a nearby office room with her legs.

Smashing through said window and subsequently a table, she showed remarkable agility of her own to turn the impact into a full bodily roll that saw her rising to her feet even as her weapon and shield flew in after her, settling themselves right into her hand.

Neo saw this, mentally compared it with what she had felt before with her own sword, and made the reasonable connection.

Leaping into the room through the smashed window Pyrrha had made, she rolled to land on her knees and lashed out with her sword, slicing the legs off of an office chair next to her. She stabbed her sword into the floor and in the next moment she had launched herself at Pyrrha again, a chair leg in each hand.

Pyrrha's shield blocked the first hit and her sword blocked the second. The third managed to slip through her guard thanks to the complete change in attack pattern from her opponent owing to the change of weaponry – and much to her apparent surprise, her other defence did not affect the weapon as it was thrust directly into her forehead, knocking her back. Her sword extended to spear form and lashed out in a wide sweeping arc, driving Neo back and allowing Pyrrha time to recover.

For a moment, the two fighters stared each other down.

"You figured out my semblance almost immediately and took the chair legs because they're not made of steel or any other kind of metal, so I can't affect them," Pyrrha said in reluctant admiration, "I must admit, you are spectacular. I do not believe I have ever faced someone in my age group who could push me to this extent."

Neo herself couldn't help but feel the same way. She had never actually had an even one-on-one fight before. Everyone else she had encountered up to this point was generally someone she could either beat handily or was way out of her league. And suddenly, here was this girl, a girl that she had written off as a pampered princess who was out of her depth, and she was being matched blow for god damn blow.

She was actually starting to enjoy herself. Not that she would ever voice that. Instead, it was time to turn things up a notch.

"You're better than I thought," she saw Pyrrha blink in surprise at finally hearing her speak, "But this fight ends now."

She saw Pyrrha's eyes widen in alarm as they focused on something behind her.

"Good prediction, girl."

Every well-honed instinct Neo had developed over the course of her short life screamed in mind-numbing terror as she felt the absolute last thing she ever wanted to feel – something dangerous, right behind her, without her realising until it was too late.

Before she could even turn around, the most powerful blow she had ever taken crashed into her back. As she smashed through the outside window of the building, the last thing she felt before unconsciousness took her was the coldness of the night.

* * *

"So you've been following us the whole time without us knowing? How?" Ruby couldn't help but be impressed at the quick-notes explanation they got from CFVY after they finished hastily securing the White Fang members. Ren was very good at stealth, not to mention Blake who was basically a ninja, and to follow both of them unnoticed was no mean feat.

"One thing you'll quickly learn in this biz," Coco grinned, "Is that superior detection is better than stealth. Fox and Velvet can track you from far enough away with their hearing that we could follow behind you at a safe enough distance that even Yatsuhashi wouldn't get found out," she paused, "No offence, big guy."

"None taken," the giant boy rumbled, "We all have our strengths and stealth is not one of mine."

"I overheard you planning back at the school," Velvet said apologetically, "And we figured we'd follow behind you just in case you got in over your heads. I guess we really underestimated you, though," she shook her head in disbelief, "I probably should have been prepared for that after hearing your little speech." Ruby felt a tinge of embarrassment. She still wasn't used to speaking out, never mind people complimenting her on it.

"Those guys were really dug in," Fox praised, "You guys did a really good job, here."

"Thanks," Ruby said bashfully, "For the praise and the backup. That could have gone badly really easily." And it really could have. If there had been anything other than simple goons here it would have been serious trouble.

"Let's not count our chickens," Coco admonished her, "We aren't done here until we've got your other pals and any hostages out safely."

"Oh," Ruby winced, "Yeah, I probably shouldn't jinx it. We're still missing Blake, Ren, Jaune and Pyrrha."

Coco nodded. "Fox?"

"There are several people moving around in the other building," Fox shook his head, "Two of them are moving very quickly, like they may have been fighting, but one… wait," he said in alarm before dashing outside with all of his considerable speed. Sharing looks of concern, the others hurried out to follow him only to hear the sound of a window breaking and Fox diving forward to catch something that fell from above. On closer inspection, it turned out to be someone Ruby didn't recognise.

"What happened?"

"Is that a girl? Is she okay?"

"Wait," Coco realised with a start, "That's?"

"The girl who was at the warehouse where we took out that White Fang cell," Velvet confirmed with a frown.

"Damn," Yang whistled, "That was a pretty rocking colour scheme she had going on until someone added all that black and blue to it."

"Warehouse? Is that the mission you guys went on last semester?" Ruby asked curiously. There was no way she could forget given how the aftermath of that incident affected her team.

"Yes, we went with Professor Goodwitch," her faunus upperclassman answered.

"This girl pulled off the most kickass mid-air rescue of someone from a falling drop-ship," Coco remembered.

"A drop-ship that was falling because of you," Fox added unhelpfully.

"What can I say? I'm so good at landing them I can even do it from outside the cockpit," his team leader shrugged unrepentantly, "But that was a wicked move she pulled off and I'm pretty sure she wasn't on the White Fang's side, so that could mean we've still got someone lurking around who is neither friendly or someone to mess with. Stay frosty, gang..."

"I think this girl was fighting someone, but there was something else moving up there that interrupted them," Fox said with a grimace, "Something fast. Very fast. There's a fight going on still, too."

"That's probably one of the others," Nora voiced with concern.

"Damn," Coco grimaced, "Okay, gang, we need to get in that building, find your pals, find the hostages and get out of here before things get the chance to go to shit-"

" _I'm afraid it's too_ _late for that."_

Everyone went still.

" _I was keeping an eye on a passing curiosity, wondering if I would need to enforce a rule that I set many years ago._ _"_

The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. Ruby looked around, trying to keep a handle on her nerves.

" _I was quite surprised when it became apparent that I would not._ _"_

She felt her grip on Crescent Rose tighten and sweat appear on her forehead, seemingly ignorant of the cold.

" _But then more curiosities showed up, and this swiftly became an unparalleled opportunity."_

A strange, black and red portal burst into being in front of them, and something began to walk out of it.

That 'something' was dressed like a creature from the most primordial of nightmares. Their face was covered entirely by an ornate, fearsome white mask, with multiple eye slits, clearly reminiscent of some kind of Grimm. Jagged black hair spiked out and down behind their head like the mane of some kind of wild beast, while the blood red colour of their armour glistened in the moonlight.

Whatever aesthetic the White Fang thought they were trying to pull off with their own Grimm masks, this woman did it much, much better. The entire getup looked like it was set up to inspire terror, and in the dark like this, it was doing a really good job.

One of her hands lay on the hilt of a long, curved, sheathed blade, likely an ōdachi from the length and shape, with the sheathe itself containing variable dust chambers – possibly a blade that could utilise different forms of dust?

Ruby's analysis of the weapon was cut short as she eyed the other hand, which was dragging an unmoving body that Ruby immediately recognised as it was unceremoniously dumped on the ground at the woman's feet.

"Pyrrha!" several voices shouted at once, her own being one of them.

"An opportunity to meet the entirety of Ozpin's brand new little 'Golden Generation' without him, my brother, or any other of his pet huntsmen hovering over you like mother hens," the woman finished.

Ruby heard Yang gasp from beside her. It took her a bit longer to make the connection. Her eyes went wide.

"You," Yang gaped.

"Me," she responded calmly, "Hello, Yang. I hadn't meant to see you this early, but one day you'll understand that chances like this are difficult to come by."

"Raven," Ruby breathed, voice laden with a mixture of uncertainty and anger. This was her. The woman who cast such a long a shadow over their family with her absence.

Raven Branwen. Yang's mother. Uncle Qrow's sister. Ruby's… aunt, she supposed? What on Remnant was she doing here, now, and why had she apparently attacked Pyrrha?

The other students eyed the two sisters in concern. "Who?" Weiss asked.

"My mom," Yang's trembling fists clenched tightly as several heads whipped around to look at her in surprise, "I've spent my entire life looking for you and you just... show up out of nowhere now? After knocking out one of my friends? How? Why?!"

"There is something," Raven intoned, "That I wish to find out."

"Well that's just fine by me," Yang growled back, shock beginning to give way to anger, "Because I've got some pretty damn major questions for you too! Care to make it a Q&A? Maybe we can start with why you left me!"

Raven regarded her contemptuously. "If you want answers for your questions, you'll need to earn them, girl."

Ruby gaped for a moment in sheer incredulity at the dismissive response. Had she more presence of mind, she'd have seen her sister doing the same.

Earn them.

She'd have to _earn them_.

Like Yang hadn't been 'earning them' every day of her life with her near-obsession with finding this woman, and her guilt over nearly getting herself and Ruby killed over it years ago.

Like she hadn't 'earned them' with the constant fear she tried so hard to hide but still became apparent whenever she let her guard down – the fear that Dad, or Uncle Qrow, or even Ruby would get up one day and leave her, too.

Like she hadn't 'earned them' by looking after their family the way her mother _should_ have done if she had actually been there.

Ruby felt a familiar fury bubbling and rising to the surface, one not entirely unlike what she had felt not too long ago upon finding a terrorist standing over the fallen form of her friend.

Crescent Rose twitched in her hand.

"You..." Ruby glared at her, "How can you _say that?_ "

Yang whirled around in shock. "Sis?"

"How can you say that?!" Ruby repeated angrily.

The woman looked at her, and something caught her interest. "Oh my," she said amusedly, "I see you got your glare from your mother in more ways than one."

Ruby's personal tension went up even higher. She wouldn't dare-

"It's almost a shame that, like with her, they're only going to care about the silver in those eyes, when they should be paying attention to the steel."

Ruby blinked, confusion overwhelming anger for a moment. What did that mean?

"Of course, I'm sure it won't matter in the end, regardless. You also seem to have inherited her attitude, after all, so I'm sure you'll end up going the same way she did – throwing your life away for _nothing._ "

Any confusion ended. Distantly, she heard what might have been familiar voices, shouting for her to stop.

She didn't.

* * *

Roman stared around the room where the now-frantic hostages were being held as Blake and Ren rushed in to untie them, the pair of students giving loud assurances all the while to try and calm them down.

He instantly understood that there was a problem.

It took him a moment longer to pinpoint what that problem was.

He turned to the two Beacon students, raising his voice to be heard over the sobs and relieved cries of the people currently being rescued.

"So... where are all the _other_ victims?"

Any reply they might have made was cut off by a cacophony of gunfire, clashing metal and explosions going off outside.


End file.
